


Unfinished Business or, What Happened Next

by LaiaAsieo



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 50,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaiaAsieo/pseuds/LaiaAsieo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Mortal War may be over, but Clary and Jace still have enemies – and those enemies want to see them separated forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**PROLOGUE**

_She was part of a wild tangle, bodies all around her, riding at breakneck speed. She could feel the heat of the horse underneath her, muscles sliding beneath the skin, hear nothing but the beating of hooves, overlaid with the sound of the horn calling them onwards. But despite the movement, the crush, underneath it all, she felt terribly, inescapably alone._

“Clary, wake up”    She felt arms around her, holding her close, as she struggled to come back to reality.

“Its okay, you’re dreaming. We’re safe, we’re all safe - you’re in New York, in the Institute.”  Jace looked at her, worry showing on his face.   “Was it Sebastian again? The Cup?”  

“Not this time.   I was with the Wild Hunt, riding.   Jace, we aren’t all safe, Mark is still there, with the Fair Folk. The Clave abandoned him to the Hunt.”   She shivered, remembering the loneliness and the sound of the hunting horn, calling her onwards.

 

**CHAPTER 1:   July 2008: The New York Institute**

Staring vaguely at the the the page of Chthonian that she was meant to be translating, Clary yawned.  

Izzy wiggled her eyebrows at Jace, “Keeping her awake too much?” she asked, glad of any distraction from her own work.

Clary blushed, despite herself. “Bad dreams,” she said, quickly.  

“Sebastian again?” asked Izzy, sympathetically.

“No, not this time,” replied Clary.  

The more she thought about it, the more the dream puzzled her. She’d had the same nightmare time and again since they returned from Edom; Sebastian pulling Heosphoros from his chest unharmed, and then forcing her to drink from the Infernal Cup.   This felt different, more like the visions that had come before from Ithuriel.   And why would she be dreaming Mark’s thoughts and feelings?

“Did the Council do anything at all about Mark, in the end?” she asked, looking at the others.

Jace shook his head. “Not as far as I know.”   He shrugged. “You saw what they were like with Helen. He’s out of sight, and as far as they’re concerned, that’s the best place for him.”

Mark’s fate played on Clary’s mind for the next few days.   She read whatever she could find in the Library on the subject of the Hunt, and the more she learned, the more she wondered whether the Clave had abandoned the young Shadowhunter not because of his faerie blood, but simply out of realism.   The Hunt didn’t appear to have any meaningful contacts with the rest of the Shadow World beyond occasional visits to the Seelie Court; at their choosing, not the Queen’s. Presumably they must have some base, for when they weren’t hunting, but nothing she read gave any indication of where it might be.

 

* * *

  

When she went home to Jocelyn and Luke’s new place that weekend, her mother seemed in a strange mood, worrying about Clary’s studies, whether living at the Institute in the week was suiting her, even whether she was getting enough to eat.  

At dinner on Saturday evening, Clary finally snapped “What on earth is going on, Mom?   You’re nearly as tense as you were last summer, before Valentine came back.   I don’t understand what the problem is – I thought you were fine about me training to be a Shadowhunter at the Institute?   And I’m seventeen, not seven, if the Institute food isn’t good enough, I am totally capable of cooking something myself.   They do have a kitchen, you know.”

“It’s not that.” As ever, Luke was calm, making sense of the chaos around their lives.   “Has Maryse talked to you at all about the Clave’s ideas for your training?”

“Yes, we’ve talked a bit. She’s been trying to set me work to help me catch up with the others, I guess. I thought she was happy about how it was going.”   She had thought that, too.   Obviously she didn’t have the depth of knowledge that the others had from their years of studying Nephilim culture. But when it came down to it, there was plenty of overlap – they had all had to learn math, literature, basic science.   And while Clary was way behind on Shadowhunter specifics, she was a quick learner, and worked hard.

“She is, very happy.” continued Luke. “In fact, she got in touch today to talk to your Mom about what happens next.   You know that normally, Shadowhunters travel to other Institutes once they get to 17 or 18 to get more experience about how they do things elsewhere.   Well, anyway, Maryse has been looking at possible placements for her children, and she thought that you probably wouldn’t want to stay behind in New York if Jace was going abroad.”  

Clary hadn’t thought about this at all.   She vaguely remembered talking about it with Isabelle way back when she first met the Shadowhunters, and was learning about their life, but she somehow hadn’t made the connection.  

“I told her you were too young.” started Jocelyn. “That you hadn’t been studying in the Institute for long enough, that it was far too soon to think about you going away.”

“But _Mom_ . . .”   Clary was horrified. She had the option of travelling, with Jace, and her Mom was going to turn it down on her behalf. “If I had stayed in school – in mundane school, I mean – I’d have been going off to college really soon.”

“College is different.   No demons, no-one trying to kill you, no rogue Downworlders” said Jocelyn, decisively. “If you go to another Institute, no-one will remember that you are new to this, you’ll just be more cannon-fodder to send out when there’s an incursion and there’s no-one old enough to deal with it properly.”

Clary looked at Luke, desperately.   “She can’t stop me, can she?   You can talk sense into her?”

Luke shook his head.   “It’s not up to me.   But it’s not up to your Mom, either.   Maryse and Robert are the heads of the Clave in New York, and as such, they make the decisions about what happens with Shadowhunters in training. Whatever they decide is what will happen, regardless of what you or Jocelyn want.”

 

* * *

 

**October 2008:   Near Cardiff, Wales**

“What the hell is this like” Jace leant against the open back door of the decrepit farmhouse, his arm round Clary.    

“I think it’s pretty”   She looked out at the hills and woodland that spread out below them.

“There are too many sheep.   I don’t trust a country with this many sheep. And I strongly suspect that there are ducks somewhere on this farm.”   Clary had forgotten Jace’s irrational hatred of ducks.

Neither of them heard the door behind them open.   “You’re not in Kansas any more, Toto”  The tall black haired man who had just come in looked at Jace in amusement.  

“Right, you two, come and sit down.”   He waved a hand at the table filling the centre of the kitchen, and pulled out benches for them.   Then he went over, threw a couple of logs into a big iron woodburner, and leant against it.”

“OK, I’m Tony, and I’m in charge round here.   I can see that this isn’t what you were expecting when you came to the UK.   I guess you were imagining running around London with a bunch of glamorous Nephilim.   Well, you two weren’t really what I was looking for, either, when I asked for some extra bodies to replace my Shadowhunters that have been sent off to God knows where. But regardless of that, I’ve got you, and you’re stuck with me for the moment.”  

For once, even Jace was silent.   The man continued.

“So, Wales isn’t London, nor is it Idris. Things don’t necessarily work the way that you’re used to, and there are ground rules I need you two to remember if you’re not going to mess up here badly.   Is that clear?”

Jace and Clary both nodded – there didn’t seem to be much else to do.

“Firstly: Never rely on a glamour, and never assume a mundane can’t see you. Even if they appear not to see you, assume they’re pretending.   I know you’re used to using glamours all the time, and it’s a hard habit to break, but humans have been interbreeding with the Fae for an awfully long time in this corner of the world.

On the same note, never speak badly of the Tylwyth Teg, the Fair Folk, regardless of company. In fact, just presume that _anyone_ you meet, whoever they are, has fae blood somewhere, or at the very least a second cousin who married a fae three generations back.   On a similar note, remember, everyone is related to everybody else, or at least it will feel like it to start with.”

He grinned “Finally, and possibly most importantly, _always_ remember that rugby is a national obsession, mundane or downworld.   If you feel the need to point out that this is stupid, wait until you are with a vampire; even Welsh vampires hate rugby, and it’s an excellent way to bond with them.   Any questions?”

“How do you hide the Institute if glamours don’t work?”   Clary was sure there were more sensible questions that she should be asking, but it was the first thing that came to mind.

“Good question.   We don’t, is the answer, or not by magic. That’s why we’re out here, and not in Cardiff proper.   Anyone who comes looking for us will be able to find us, regardless. Casual passers by, tourists – well, everyone knows that Wales is full of old farms turned into hippy communes, why should they look twice at this one.   Anyone who does come up the drive, try and sell them some duck eggs or honey – there’s a supply by the front door.   Either they’ll go away, or you get some beer money, it’s a win win situation.”

Clary could see Jace processing that one; she wondered how long it would be before he figured out that if there were duck eggs, there must unquestionably be ducks.   But before he could say anything, a short blond man – a werewolf, Clary realised, and was immediately pleased with herself for spotting this – came in through the back door.

“Hey, Tony, how’s it going."

“Not bad.   Come to meet the new recruits?”

“That’s it, thought I’d stop by and see who’s turned up.   I didn’t know they were sending you baby Nephilim now, though.”

Jace stiffened “Jace Herondale, pleased to meet you . . .?”

“Well now, baby _American_ Nephilim at that.”   He nodded at Jace.   “Dai Williams, leader of the Cardiff werewolves.   I hope you’ve both got better manners around Downworlders than some of the American shadowhunters I’ve met.”

Now it was Clary’s turn to be offended. “My stepfather is a werewolf, so I should imagine so.   _And_ my best friend was a vampire” she couldn’t help adding, before realising how stupid she sounded.

Fortunately, Dai Williams didn’t appear to notice. “ _Was_ a vampire.   Are you talking about the Daylighter, Simon Lewis?”  

“Yes.”   Clary nodded.

“You must be Clary, then?   Lucian Greymark’s stepdaughter?   The one who drew the Alliance rune?” He sounded distinctly more friendly, and Clary nodded.

“Well now, maybe you have got someone useful here, Tony. That was a great thing you did there, Clary.   I was at the battle, got marked up with it, fantastic to see the Nephilim in Idris actually working with us Downworlders for once.  Anyway, the other reason I dropped in was to invite this lot to a party down at the pack farm on Friday, you two would be very welcome if you’d like to come along.   If Tony’s busy, I’m sure Gwen’ll show you the way, she’s having a thing with one of my cubs, can’t get her out of the place.” With that, he left.  

* * *

 

Clary opened the door to the burner in their room, and poked at the fire inside.    Luke’s farm had a woodburner, so at least she had some idea how to light it using the paper and kindling that had been left for them, but she couldn’t get it to produce much heat.   She had no idea how the New York Institute was heated, but she guessed that it didn’t involve fires; at least, Jace wasn’t volunteering any help.

After Dai the werewolf had left, Tony had shown them up to their room, and suggested that they settle in and then come down and meet the rest of the Institute shadowhunters at dinner time.   The room was large and, Clary thought, pretty comfortable, with a double bed, big sofa, desk and bookshelves.

“So what do you reckon Alec and Magnus are up to, right now?” Jace asked, as he folded his clothes and put them neatly into one of the cupboards.  

Clary giggled. “I don’t know, but I’m betting it doesn’t involve rugby playing downworlders.”

“Actually, Magnus might quite like blond rugby playing downworlders,” mused Jace.   “My guess though is that they’re checking out the London downworld club scene, Alec is using the amazing library in the London institute, Magnus is probably tracking down all his old contacts from when he lived in London.“

“Maryse did say the point of these assignments was to give young Shadowhunters an idea of how things were done differently in other places.   I guess we’re going to get that, at least,”   Clary said, trying to be optimistic.

“ _And_ I have to live with your mess.”   Jace pointed out.

“I am _not_ that messy.   Besides, you should be pleased, before we got here you were worrying that they’d put us at opposite ends of the Institute and we’d have to sneak around in the night.”

“If this room ends up as untidy as your space in New York, I may be begging for a room at the other end of the building before the end of the month.   Oh well, it’s only six months, no doubt we will cope.   What’s the worst that can happen, anyway?”

* * *

 

 

_Note:   If you’re waiting for Magnus and Alec, they arrive in chapter 5 . . ._

 


	2. Chapter 2

“I imagine neither of you speak Welsh; you need to learn, starting tomorrow.   It won’t just be useful to you here; you’ll find that speaking to the Fair folk in Welsh will get you a long way in most parts of the world.   Gwen here will help you, and in return, you can help her look after the ducks, she’ll be glad of someone else to get them in at night sometimes if she’s over with Huw and the wolfpack.”

When they came down for dinner, Clary was glad to see that there was actually more than just the one Cardiff shadowhunter.  Gwen, who was to help them with Welsh, looked about 16, cheerful and obviously pleased to have some younger visitors.  Going round the table, Tony introduced everyone; Gwen’s mother, Helen Freeman, and then two Irish Shadowhunters, Nuala and Brendan Highsmith, currently based in Cardiff.  

“That’s all of us, for the moment,” Tony explained   “Before the war we generally had eight to ten adult Shadowhunters covering Wales, but with the losses at Institutes elsewhere, it’s just been the four of us with Gwen as last ditch backup, so you can be sure you won’t be bored.

I don’t know what it’s been like in New York, but over the last few months we’ve been getting more and more incursions, all over the country.   The real problem here is that in the past we’ve relied a lot on the Fae to pick up on mundanes trying to practice magic and raise demons, call us if there’s something we need to deal with, that sort of thing.   But strangely enough, they’re not overly keen on helping Shadowhunters right now after the terms that the Clave imposed, so that makes things an awful lot harder for us. That’s the main reason I asked if we could at least have some youngsters to help us out, even if there weren’t any adults that could be spared.   Can either of you drive, by the way?”

“I just got my licence” Clary volunteered. “Luke suggested it might be useful.   I don’t have much experience, though.”

Tony shrugged “Go slow, and remember to drive on the left; you’ll be ok.   We’ve got three cars, keys are on the hook by the front door.   It’s fine to use them for personal trips so long as there’s at least one left in the yard for any Shadowhunter business, there’s a jar for petrol money here in the kitchen.  Obviously just take any car if you get a call and none of us are here, and leave us a note to say where you’ve gone.”

“If you do get stopped, you’re pretty safe using glamours on the police,” added Nuala.   “You don’t get a lot of fae blood in the police force; they’re not big on following rules, faeries.”

* * *

_Riding, again.   It’s beautiful, stars above and around them, forests below.   They’re not hunting, yet, and this time she can feel the wonder of riding so far up above the world.   Then the horn calls, and her stomach twists as the frenzy starts._

_/_

“All the others have gone out already, they had a call from up in North Wales.   I’m supposed to train with you after breakfast, then I can show you round a bit more if you like?”

Jace peered at Gwen over his coffee “Are you _always_ this cheerful at this time in the morning?”

Gwen shrugged “I guess. Besides, its been dead here forever, it makes a change to have some new people.”

Clary grinned.   “We may be new, but I’m not sure Jace counts as people before eight o’clock.”

“I’m not people, I’m Nephilim. I’m sure there’s something somewhere in the Law that states that we can be dark and brooding at least until the second cup of coffee.”   Jace poured another coffee, and consoled himself with a large bowl of cereal.

“Maybe you could show us the weapons room first?” Clary suggested. Unlike Jace, she was thoroughly awake.   Last night’s dream had felt even more realistic than the first one, and she was happy to be in the friendly Institute kitchen and distracted from the dreadful loneliness of the Hunt.

As usual, Jace was far more enthusiastic when confronted with a selection of seraph blades, swords and other dangerous items.   From the weapons room, they went up to the training space in the attic and practiced some swordplay.   Clary was impressed by Gwen’s fighting skills.   While she wasn’t as fast as Jace – not many Nephilim were, given his angel blood – she was still very quick, and used moves that he obviously wasn’t used to countering.

‘D’you want to swap?” Gwen paused, and looked at Clary, who was stretching at the side of the room.   “Are you as fast as he is?”  

Clary laughed “No, I’m really not.   You’re seriously good, you must practice a lot.”

“Not much else to do here, and Nuala’s a good teacher. Besides, I’ve had to fight for real a lot the last year or so, gives me an incentive.   Damn, I’d better get the phone.”   Gwen ran off down the stairs, as Clary realised that the vague noise she’d heard was a phone ringing two stories below them.

She appeared again a couple of minutes later, running up the stairs.   “We’d best get some weapons – that was one of our contacts, looks like there’s a problem over in Newport.   Do you mind driving, Clary? Otherwise I could call Huw – he’s my boyfriend,” she added. “But it takes a while for him to get here, and it sounds like we should get over there reasonably soon.”

Clary looked over at Jace.   He had the air of poised – excitement? Perhaps not excitement, but readiness, that always came over him when there was the prospect of real fighting.   Her stomach tensed at the prospect of driving on the wrong side of the road, in a strange car, on roads she didn’t know.   She’d have to do it at some point, though, and given she evidently wasn’t going to be much use in a fight compared to the other two, at least she’d feel that she had some real purpose here.   “Sure,” she said, hoping her voice sounded more certain than she felt.  

Ten minutes later, they were in the car, and she was figuring out the controls.   Thankfully Luke’s truck had a manual gearbox, so she was used to that, at least, and as they pulled out of the farm she felt a little more confident.  

Gwen directed her, interspersing her instructions with background to the call out. Clary had to concentrate hard on the driving, and staying on the right side of the road, so it took her a few minutes before she fully took on where they were headed.

“Are you saying that we’re going to a Doctor Who _location shoot_?”

“That’s it, in the St Woolos Cemetery.” Gwen replied. “It happens all the time. The demons know that anything strange that mundanes see, people being attacked or whatever, they’ll just write it off as part of the filming, so they take advantage.   One of the production assistants is a quarter faerie, though, she’s got a sense for when trouble’s coming, so she gives us a call.   To be honest, you’d have thought by now the demons would realise that we always get them, but I guess they’re not that bright. It’s always lesser demons, nothing that drastic.”

At that point, they reached the city, and Clary’s attention was taken up entirely with negotiating the traffic and not hitting anything. They parked in a side road, and ran up towards the cemetery.  

“What in Raziel’s name is going on in there?”   Jace sounded bewildered.   Clary suddenly realised that he almost certainly had no idea what they were heading for.  

“Have you ever seen Doctor Who, the TV show” she asked.

“Nope, never heard of it.”

“You’ve never heard of _Doctor Who_?” It was Gwen’s turn to sound baffled.

“They’re kind of old fashioned in the New York Institute. They don’t do TV, movies, stuff like that.” explained Clary. “I didn’t grow up there,” she added.

“Doctor Who is a TV show, with aliens, that sort of thing”   Clary went on, for Jace’s benefit. “Those are Cybermen, the big silver robots you can see over by that monument.”

“So if it’s a sci-fi show, why are they filming people wearing Victorian clothes?” Jace asked, pointing out a procession being filmed a little way across the cemetery.

“The Doctor travels in time, in a TARDIS; that’s the blue box over there,” explained Gwen.

“A time travelling doctor in a small wooden box. Sure, I can see that.   Maybe we should just go find the demons, I can cope with those. Is your contact over with the filming crew?”

“Actually,” said Clary “if you’ve finished being snarky about the show, I think maybe we should go investigate in those trees. Isn’t that an Iblis demon?”   She pointed towards a small copse on the other side of the cemetery from the filming party, where a number of dense, vaguely human shaped clouds of black smoke were moving between the trees.

“You’re improving,” remarked Jace to Clary, as the three set off at a run towards the trees.  

“I’ve been working on it – but mostly I just remember Iblis demons from Alec’s description of him and Magnus fighting them in Idris” admitted Clary.   She realised as she said it, though, that a few months ago she definitely wouldn’t have been able to talk and run without getting breathless. Perhaps she was becoming more of a proper Shadowhunter, even if she did still feel distinctly inadequate several times a week in Jace’s company.

As the got close to the copse, they circled round with unspoken agreement to come up behind the demons.   There was a group of four of the shadowy forms, clustered together, apparently waiting and watching. A moment later, it became clear what they were waiting for.   A lone teenage girl walked along the path by the copse; probably trying to get closer to the filming party, Clary guessed. The demons flowed out of the trees towards her. “Move!” Jace shouted, and the three Shadowhunters bolted through the trees, towards the surging mass of smoke.

Jace and Clary both drew seraph blades, naming them as they ran, and Gwen drew her sword.   As they closed in, the demons suddenly became aware of their presence; abandoning their prey, they turned and surged towards them.   Gwen struck at the nearest, aiming for the glowing yellow eyes.  The demon howled in agony, clawing at her with surprisingly solid talons, but she hit it again, this time in the heart, and it vanished with a hideous shriek.

In the moments that Gwen had fought with her demon, Jace had darted into the middle of the group, stabbed a second demon directly in the heart, and then turned to engage a third.   As Clary slashed into the final demon’s face, Gwen cut at it, straight through the centre of the burning smoke. The demon reformed, lashing out; it caught Gwen’s sword arm, but while it was distracted, Clary managed to stab again, and it too crumpled and vanished.

At this point, the one surviving demon realised that it was hopelessly outnumbered, turned, and tried to flee. Jace, though, was too fast for it, flicking his seraph blade and striking it squarely in the back. As it howled in pain, Gwen ran forwards and decapitated it.   Apparently, even Iblis demons couldn’t re-form once their heads were chopped off, and both parts vanished in a final dark swirl of smoke.

“Raziel, that hurts,” Gwen said, looking down at the claw mark on her arm. “I should have let one of you finish off that last one.   Nice shot, though, Jace.   Would one of you do me an Iratze?”

“Get Clary to do it,” said Jace. “Hers are always the best.”   In fact, Clary was already pulling out her stele. In the few months she’d been fighting with the Shadowhunters, she’d realised that her greatest use came after the battles; those marked with her Iratzes always healed far more quickly, and she could deal with more serious injuries.    

Despite the demon poison, Gwen’s cut was fairly minor, and it healed in moments once the rune was applied.   “OK, now for the good bit,” she said, cheerful as ever.   “Let’s go see if we can find David Tennant, and get some photos. It looks like they’re taking a break.”  

She pointed out from the trees. The fight had only taken a few minutes, and Clary saw that the girl they’d just rescued from the demon swarm was now hanging around near the camera crew, obviously entirely unaware of her narrow escape.

“We can glamour our weapons here, you don’t need to worry about the crew, not much faerie blood in that lot, besides Mari of course. They just think I’m a super keen fan” Gwen already had her stele out, and was applying glamour runes.  

Clary copied her, while Jace looked on in some bemusement. “Why do we want photos?” he asked.  

“Well, for a start, because it will make Simon _green_ with envy,” replied Clary.

“And David Tennant is hot” added Gwen.

“That too,” Clary agreed.

Jace raised his eyebrows.   “Now, making Simon green with envy I can relate to.   But frankly, _I_ want to be the hot one around here, and I’m not sure I’m happy with competition. Can this David Tennant kill Iblis demons?”

Clary thumped him, good naturedly. “Don’t listen to him, Gwen, he’s always like this.   He doesn’t really mean it.”

“Oh, but I do,” countered Jace, but found he was speaking to two departing backs, as Clary and Gwen headed towards a large truck on the other side of the cemetery.   Giving in, he sighed dramatically, and followed them.

“Hey, Mari, diolch am galw, all sorted, dim problem”   Gwen stuck her head into the truck, calling out greetings to various crew members as she worked her way through the crowd of fans.   “Could you fix for us to see the Doctor?   Is he on a break? I’ve got two American visitors here, and it would be amazing to get some photos for them to take home.”

“I’ll do my best, Gwennie.” Mari’s faerie blood was pretty obvious, Clary thought, at least if you knew. She wore her dark hair long, but where her ears poked through, they were gently pointed, and her skin had a distinctly non-human sheen. “We’re pretty rushed now, but I reckon if you come with me we might just catch him.”

She led them back through the fans over to a catering truck, where Clary saw David Tennant, wearing a long brown coat over a pinstripe suit, and holding a large mug of tea.   “Isn’t he lush?” whispered Gwen, as Mari went over and spoke to him briefly, then beckoned them over. Gwen passed her phone to Jace, who was looking less than thrilled, and he took a selection of photos of the two of them posed with the Doctor.

Clary felt a little overwhelmed by the experience; she wasn’t as much of a Doctor Who fan as Simon, but still, the show was something of a geek legend.   She found herself babbling slightly as she thanked the Doctor, and went on to how much she enjoyed the stories, then paused, embarrassed. He grinned at her, winked slightly, and with a tilt of his head said “All the stories are true, that’s what they say, right?”

At that point, Gwen and Mari gathered her up, rather dazed, and took her off to the other side of the catering truck, where they all got issued with mugs of strong tea. Clary wasn’t quite sure whether she actually liked Welsh tea, but right now she was grateful for it.  

“Did he say what I thought he said?” Clary turned to the other two as they left the cemetery, having said goodbye to Mari, and got some more pictures with a Cyberman posing for the gaggle of fans.

Gwen nodded. “I don’t know whether he meant anything by it, might have just been co-incidence. He’s Scottish, mind you, even though he does do an English accent for the Doctor.   They’re Celts too, not as much fae blood as the Welsh, but you never know.”

Clary shivered, slightly “It’s weird, still.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N The Doctor Who episode being filmed in the cemetery is the 2008 Christmas Special, ‘The Next Doctor’. I’ve shifted the filming dates back by a few months in order to fit with Jace and Clary’s time in Wales.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3:**

_“Help me, Clary, help me.”_

_“Mark?”_

_She woke, shivering, wet with sweat. Jace was deeply asleep, breathing gently.   Wanting to escape from the dream, she got out of bed and went over to the window.   She pushed through the heavy curtains, and sat in the deep windowsill, letting them fall back behind her. She looked out at the stars, still shaking a little. Something moved high above, just at the edge of her vision, but she couldn’t focus on it, and when she looked back, it was gone._

_/_

Clary sat in the kitchen with her sketch pad and pencils.   She’d thought of drawing the view from the big windows, but instead she found herself sketching the Hunt, the wild tangle of horses, and the big unearthly hounds that led them.   She drew quickly, without really thinking, immersed again in the noises of the hunt, and Mark’s thoughts.    

As Jace came into the kitchen, she folded up her pad and put it away. Right now she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about her dreams, though she knew she needed to do something. If nothing else, she wasn’t sure how long she could manage with so little sleep.

Her phone pinged. She grinned, dreams forgotten. She’d sent Simon the photos last night, but hadn’t got a reply; this must be him.

“WHAT! WITHOUT ME!!! DAVID TENNANT!!!!”

Clary wordlessly showed Simon’s text to Jace.

“Okay. I appreciate the jealousy caused, and note that Simon is green with envy.   Do you now want to explain to me exactly what it is about a time travelling medical professional in a small blue box that has reduced him to quite such transports.”   Jace looked pained. “For a start, I thought that texts like that were sent by sixteen year old girls, not Shadowhunters.”

“Oi - be careful what you’re saying about sixteen year old girls, ignorant American Nephilim boy.” Gwen came in to hear Jace’s last words.

Clary thought that perhaps it was time to distract both of them.   “Do you have anything that we could watch Doctor Who on here, Gwen?”

“Not really. No-one’s ever quite worked out whether we can’t get broadband because the runes scramble it, or whether it’s because we’re too far from the exchange.   They’ve got internet over at the pack farmhouse, though, we could go over there. Huw’s always happy enough to watch Doctor Who, and he’d like to meet you two anyway.   It’s only five minutes walk down through the fields.”

“Gwen?” Helen stuck her head round the door into the sitting room. “Ducks?”

“Oh yeah. Sorry Mum, I’ll do them later, I’m just going to take Jace and Clary over to Ty Canol to meet the pack.”   Gwen didn’t sound optimistic, Clary noticed.

“Ducks first. I’m sure Jace will help you, though.”   Helen turned to Clary.   “Clary, can you go up to the training room.   I gather you’re supposed to be working more on your fighting skills, and Nuala says this morning would be a good time for her to have a session with you and see what are the best things for you to focus on while you’re here.”

Nuala was waiting for her upstairs, warming up, with a selection of weapons already out at the side of the practice area. Clary put her sketchbook and pencils safely to one side, and went to join her.

Two hours later, she felt mentally and physically exhausted. Although she’d trained hard in New York, it had always been with Jace, Izzy and Alec.   They were all excellent fighters, but she could feel the difference immediately they started to work as Nuala homed in on areas where she needed to work on her technique.  

As they worked through a cool down routine at the end of the session, Nuala ran through the exercises that she was to work on through the next week. Trying to get them clear in her head, Clary went over to get her book.

Nuala came over to see what she was doing.   “Are you drawing the positions?”

Clary showed her. “It’s the easiest way for me to remember. Partly I can look at them if I get lost, but also if I draw something, it helps me get it clear in my head.”

“You know, those would be really helpful for other people, too.” Nuala sounded impressed “You know, the main thing I do is teaching, except at the moment, of course when there’s so few of us.   I’m hoping to go back to it more once they’ve brought together all the candidates for Ascension.   Could you draw more poses and exercises, if I showed them to you?”

“Of course.” Clary answered.   “I’d really like it, I love drawing, and it’s great to be able to do something useful with it.   I’ve got some other things in here already, from what Gwen showed me earlier this week.”   She flipped through the book, looking for the warm-up routine she’d sketched before.  

As she reached the Hunt, Nuala put her hand out, and stopped her.   “Is that the Wild Hunt?   It’s incredibly lifelike, as if you’d been up there with them.”  

Clary nodded, then with a rush, explained about her dreams, about Mark speaking to her, and the compulsion that she’d felt this morning as she’d drawn the picture. Telling someone was a relief, and although she’d only met Nuala a few days ago, Clary already felt that she was a solid, reliable presence, someone who wouldn’t make a fuss and rush off to tell the Clave or - even worse - her mother.

As she explained, Nuala listened intently, and nodded.   She looked at the picture again, thoughtfully, then spoke slowly, her soft Irish accent more obvious than before.   “There’s something strange going on here, surely.   I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know that it’s something that many Nephilim could help with. Normally I’d think to go to the Fae, but right now they’re not likely to be at their most helpful.   I’m wondering if . . .” and she said a name that Clary couldn’t catch “in Cwm Ger would be the best person to try.   He knows as much about the Hunt as anyone outside the fae.”

“Who did you say?” said Clary, tentatively.

Nuala laughed “You’ll not have got used to Welsh names yet, then.   Give me your pencil, there.”   She took the book and the pencil, and wrote in Clary’s pad, beneath the picture of the Hunt.   “I’ll talk to Tony, maybe I can take you and Jace for a trip up there and talk to him, see if he has any suggestions.”

 / 

“Had fun with the ducks?” Clary had come down to the kitchen to find a pot of coffee sitting on the burner, and a partly eaten cake on the table labelled ‘help yourself’.   After a very brief struggle with her conscience, she decided that she was tired enough to justify coffee and cake on the sofa, rather than going to find Gwen and Jace, as she’d intended.    

“Bloodthirsty creatures.   Smelly, too.”

“They’re not bloodthirsty, they’re cute.     Well, maybe their house was smelly, but only because it needed cleaning out.”

Looking at Jace’s boots, Clary decided that she’d _definitely_ made the right decision.  

 

/

After lunch, Tony took them off to the Institute library to start work on learning Welsh. Although the library was much smaller than the one in New York, it was still impressively large.   He gave them a quick guided tour, then produced what Clary was amused to see looked very much like a mundane introductory Welsh course. She asked, and he nodded. “No point in writing our own when the Mundanes have perfectly good materials that you can use. The Fae aren’t going to care how you learnt the language.   Gwen’s got plenty of work of her own to be getting on with, so she can be here and give you help when you need it.   Once you’ve got your head round the basics, we’ll start speaking Welsh around the Institute, and you’ll soon pick it up.”  

A couple of hours later, Gwen looked up from her work at the library clock.   “Should we stop now?”

“Yes.” Jace sounded definite. “This is a _ridiculous_ language.   Every time you look twice at a word, it’s changed into something else.”

Clary grinned “And I thought you’d be storming through it, while I was struggling away.”   She had, too; Valentine had made Jace work in a different language every day of the week, while she just had a little high school Spanish.

“I prefer my languages to stay still and behave properly.”   Jace came up behind her and put his arms round her, peering over her shoulder.   “Unlike my girlfriends, of course.   _You_ appear to be learning Welsh by illustrating it.”

“ _Girlfriends_? There’s not meant to be an ‘s’ there, remember?”   Clary glared at him, but spoiled it slightly by twisting round to kiss him. “And the illustrations are to help me remember things.”

Gwen raised her eyebrows.   “If you two can stop being soppy, we could have some food and go to this party?”


	4. Chapter 4

Clary had been relieved to find out that, unlike Downworld parties in New York, she wasn’t expected to dress up for this one. In fact, Gwen had laughed – a lot – when she told her about being issued with Izzy’s dress and boots. And even more when she’d shown her a photo of her in the outfit.  

When she got to the party, she realised why. As far as she could tell, the main dress code was ‘hobbit lookalike’.   She couldn’t help laughing a little at herself; when she’d first met the Shadowhunters, she’d felt she’d never really be part of that world, because she wouldn’t ever be cool enough.   She had a feeling that if she’d discovered the Downworld round here, that wouldn’t have been a problem.  

Gwen introduced them to Huw, her boyfriend.   Clary was glad to see that at least he didn’t have a beard long enough to plait, nor was he wearing mud-coloured homespun clothes.   In fact, he looked like a perfectly normal blond teenager in jeans and hoodie; a little fuzzy around the edges, but she’d long since realised that male werewolves tended to look rather unshaven at the best of times.  

Although it was still early, the farmhouse was packed out.   The layout seemed to Clary to be much the same as the Cardiff institute, and the big farm kitchen was full of younger werewolves playing loud rock music.   At the back of the house there was a sitting room where a group of vampires were mixing blood cocktails and dancing to what she thought was probably twenties swing. The big open hallway was set out with tables for drinks and food, and a mix of older downworlders - werewolves, vampires and fae – were standing around chatting.  

Remembering Magnus’ party, Clary inspected the food and drink cautiously.   She decided that bottled Mundane beer should be safe enough, and found what was obviously the werewolf end of the food table, given the quantity of meat.  

A voice she didn’t recognise boomed next to her. “How’s it going? They got you out there killing demons yet?”   After a moment, she realised it was Dai, the pack leader that they’d met on their first day in Wales. He continued, before she had a chance to answer.   “Great bunch over there at the Institute. Too serious though, never let their hair down and party. Glad they let you kids out, at least.” He clapped her on the shoulder, grabbed another beer from the table, and wandered off without waiting for any reply.

It was true, none of the adult Shadowhunters were at the party.   Another phone call had come in while they were eating dinner, and this time they had all left immediately, taking two of the cars.   They hadn’t even finished their food, just paused to gather weapons and some spare gear and gone as quickly as possible.   There had been yet another serious incursion by the sound of it, this time in North Wales, and they weren’t expecting to be back for a few days.   Clary was beginning to think that Tony hadn’t just been grumbling about his lack of fighters.

While she’d been talking to Dai, the others had gone off to join the younger crowd in the kitchen.   Following them, she saw Jace, standing over in one corner, talking intently to Gwen. As she got nearer, she could overhear a little. Jace was talking about Valentine, and growing up with him.   She drew away, surprised. He’d talked a little to her about his life with Valentine, though not much, and she’d never heard him discuss it at all with anyone else, not even Alec or Izzy.

She didn’t want to interrupt, so she wandered outside, where a group was sitting on logs around a fire.   There was music from a fiddle, pipes and a guitar, and some of the group were singing.   Clary found a space on the logs, and sat down to listen.  

It was very dark outside the farmhouse, with just the light from the glowing fire.   She let her mind wander, looking up at the stars. She’d always enjoyed watching the night sky at Luke’s farmhouse, away from the city lights, but here the starlight was even brighter, and she could see what must be the Milky Way stretching across the sky away from her.  

As she watched the stars, the instruments stopped playing, and a single woman’s voice rose, high and clear.   Clary didn’t recognise the song, but started to listen more closely.   As the woman sang, more voices joined from around the circle, and someone started to drum, a deep bass beat.   Suddenly the chorus of the song and the drumming seemed to become distant, the sound retreating from her.   She looked up at the sky again, and now she saw the Hunt clearly for the first time, galloping above her through the Milky Way. This time it wasn’t just Mark calling to her, but a host of voices;

_Clary; come to us, ride with us, join us . . ._

She tried to pull herself away, but she was caught, the drum beat holding her, changing into the rhythm of the horse’s hooves underneath her.  

_You want to be with us, want to ride with us. Not just in your dreams . . ._

She was riding again, and this time it felt different; she knew that somehow she was up with the Hunt, not just experiencing Mark’s feelings. She realised she was losing her hold on her body, though she couldn’t tell how, or why.

_Come home with us, under the sea, come home . . ._

Then suddenly, she felt someone shaking her and a woman’s voice, unfamiliar but wonderfully solid and real.     ‘Look away, bach, don’t look up at them. Stay down here, you don’t belong with them, not your kind.’

“She’s away with the faeries” An unkind voice, mocking. Clary looked, and saw a small, dark man, sharp featured, maybe fae himself.

The woman who had roused her spoke sharply.   “You be quiet, Wyn, let the child be.”

Clary clutched her arms to herself, suddenly chilled, despite the fire. “Where are they going?” she asked. “They said ‘Home with us, under the sea . . . They called to me, to go with them.”

“They’re going home, like they said.   Under the sea to the Cantre’r Gwaelod, the drowned Lowland Hundred. That’s where the Hunt goes when they’ve finished for the night, when they’re not riding.”

“Why are they calling me?” Clary spoke half to herself.

“They’re the Hunt, who can say why they do what they do.   Are you here with friends, bach, maybe you should go and find them.” The woman’s kindly voice brought Clary back to reality, and she got up, and moved away from the fire.

“Are you alright?” Jace came over to her as she entered the house, looking for him.  He looked shaken, and had a faint green cast to his face.  

She was so used to Jace’s almost unshakeable composure, her experience by the fire fled in concern for him.     “I’m fine, I’ll tell you about it later. Are you okay, Jace?   You look pretty bad.   I heard you talking to Gwen earlier, about Valentine.”

“Heard us swapping childhood stories?” His tone was wry. “It’ll teach me to be sarcastic.   I asked Gwen why she was always so relentlessly cheerful.   She said her father was killed four years ago, and she’s been cheerful ever since.”

Clary stayed silent, and waited for Jace to go on.   There was obviously more coming.

“Actually, she said she always looked cheerful before that, too, because if she ever cried or complained, he’d hit her, or her mother.   The others knew what was going on, but he always made sure there wasn’t anyone else around to see, so it was pretty much impossible for them to prove anything or take him to the Clave. Her mother wanted to leave him, take her away, but he’d threaten to find them and kill them both.” Jace shrugged. “I guess we both know how hard it is for a Shadowhunter to disappear.”

“What happened to him?” Clary asked, gently.

“In a fight. Tony was meant to have his back; but he didn’t.   It sounds like none of the other Shadowhunters were too quick with an Iratze, either.” He laughed, shortly. “He makes Valentine sound like a model father, to be honest. At least _he_ had a purpose, even if it was to turn me into a tool for world domination.”

Clary put her arms around Jace, and held him, not saying anything. She thought back to her childhood, and was thankful for Luke’s kind, undemanding presence. She’d been so angry with Jocelyn when she discovered how her memories had been taken from her and how she’d been brought up without knowledge of her Nephilim blood or heritage.   She thought about Gwen’s father’s threats. Jocelyn had been in the same situation, but she hadn’t waited for Valentine to die, she had found a way to take Clary away, to protect her.   She suddenly wanted to see her Mom and apologise to her, tell her that she loved her, and that she was grateful for giving her the chance to grow up in a predictable, loving home, with no violence or threats.

After a moment, Jace broke away from her, apparently back to his normal, unruffled self. “I’m going to get another beer – d’you want one?”

Clary nodded.   She didn’t usually drink much, but she figured right now, it might help.  

Seeing Jace heading off to find drinks, Gwen came over to her.   “I guess Jace has been telling you about my dear old Dad.”

Clary nodded “I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say.

Gwen shrugged. “Don’t worry, everyone knows, it’s no secret. It’s nice to talk to Jace. Compared to Valentine, Dad doesn’t sound so bad, at least he only took it out on me and Mum, he didn’t want to take over the world or anything.”  

She paused, then said “That’s why I want to be better than anyone else at fighting, you know. I want to be certain that if someone threatens to follow me, and hurt me or my kids, they won’t be able to, no matter who they are.   I thought I was doing pretty well, but now I’ve met Jace, I guess I can see that I just didn’t have that many people to compare myself to.”   She sounded despondent, for the first time since Clary had met her.

“Jace is . . . different.” Clary didn’t know whether she should explain; it wasn’t something that many people knew. But then she figured that he’d already shared so much with Gwen, he was unlikely to mind. And it seemed unfair not to tell her.   “Did he tell you that Valentine experimented on both of us, before we were born?”   _And Sebastian_ she thought, but she didn’t think she needed to mention that.   “That’s why Jace is so fast, not just the training. It’s not something anyone else could copy, really.”

“On both of you?   How come he experimented on you?”   She obviously didn’t know about Clary’s relationship to Valentine.

“It’s kind of complicated. Jace isn’t related at all by blood to Valentine, did he tell you that? Valentine took him from his parents as a baby after they died.” _From his mother’s womb . . ._ She didn’tthink she needed to add that, either.     “He’s my genetic father, but I didn’t know that until last year. I didn’t even know he existed; I’d never met him, nor any Shadowhunters.   After the Uprising, everyone thought Valentine was dead, but my Mom never believed it.   So she went away with me and hid in the Mundane world, and told me my father was a soldier called Jonathan Clark.”   She figured that more or less covered it.  

“But while my mother was pregnant with me – and Jace’s mother with him – Valentine fed both of them angel blood” _from an angel he tortured._ “That’s why Jace is so fast, and why I can do . . . different things . . . with runes, compared to other Nephilim.”

“Okay” Gwen was obviously trying to get it clear. “That sounds kind of complicated.”

“Yeah, it was kind of tricky for a while.” She didn’t really want to go any further, and was relieved to see Jace coming across the room, carrying three beers.  

It seemed like a good moment to change the subject. “Gwen, what’s the – is it the Lowland Hundred?”   She wasn’t sure if she had the name right.

‘Cantre’r Gwaelod? The stories say that it used to be a beautiful kingdom.   It was where Cardigan Bay is now, low lying, but rich hunting and beautiful countryside, all protected by dykes.   Then one day, a huge flood came in, and over ran the defences, and the whole country was lost to the sea.    After it was drowned in the mundane world, it became part of the lands of the Tylwyth Teg.   You can still see the remains of the forests, though, when there’s a real low tide and the sands shift up at Ynyslas.”

At that point, Jace arrived, and they were drawn back into the party.   The furniture had been pushed back in the kitchen, and some of the werewolves and fae were dancing.   Clary tried to join in, but found it hard to get back into the mood, especially since the faeries evidently had very different taste in music to the pack member who was DJing.   He was still trying to play rock, but every few minutes, the decks would be covered in a shower of purple sparks, and it was replaced by the repetitive beats of trance music.   At this point all the fae would start dancing, while he growled, and fiddled with the decks until they were back under his control.  

* * *

 

Clary lay in bed, her mind running through the events of the evening.   Jace had fallen straight asleep when they got back, having put his conversation with Gwen out of his mind by the simple strategy of getting drunk. After a while, she figured she might as well get up; maybe if she made herself a hot drink, and had some time to think, she’d be able to sleep.  

Down in the kitchen, she made tea, and took it over to sit in the windowsill.  She leant against the window, looking out at the night sky, and thought about her mother, about Luke, and about what her life might have been like if Jocelyn hadn’t taken her away.

She’d brought her sketch pad down with her, and drew Jocelyn as she might have looked when she was younger, wearing Nephilim gear and holding a sword.   Her mind slid on to the party and now she drew the fire circle, sketching in the figures sitting round it, trying to catch the way the flames had flickered in the darkness.   She thought of the voices calling her as she had sat by the fire, and tried to remember what Gwen had told her about the Lowland Hundred, drowned under Cardigan Bay.   The warmth of the tea was soothing, and as she relaxed, the description came back to her; a beautiful land, protected by dykes.  

_Orchards, hung with ripe apples, rosy in the October sunshine.   They’re wonderful, Clary, you should see them, the best tasting fruit in Wales.   Rich hunting grounds, we ride across them with the Cŵn Annwn, not hunting the dead here, but deer, rabbits, foxes, so many creatures.   You should ride with us Clary, be here with us . . ._

This time, there was no-one to pull her away from the voices, and very gently, very slowly, she slipped away from the Institute, her empty mug and her sketch pad dropping out of her hands to lay beside her on the floor.  

 


	5. Chapter 5

Jace woke late the next morning, the October sun shining warmly through the windows and on to his face.   The bed was cold beside him; Clary must have got up already and gone downstairs.   He stretched, then decided that he really should get up and have some breakfast.

When he came down into the kitchen, he saw her in the window seat, asleep, mug and sketch pad on the floor beside her.   He watched her breathing peacefully as he made coffee, beautiful in the sunlight, her hair shining copper.   When it was brewed, he poured two cups, and took one over to wake her.  

He kissed her cheek, and shook her gently, surprised that she was still sleeping. Usually even the slightest noise woke her, while he was still dead to the world.   She often joked that it was the one area where her fighting reflexes were better than his.  

Jace realised the moment he shook her that something was very wrong. Clary didn’t wake up, or respond in any way; instead her body slumped against him, inert.  He shook her again, harder, calling her name.   Still no response.     He was about to call for help, when he realised that they were alone in the Institute. The adults were all in north Wales, and Gwen had stayed over at the party last night, leaving him and Clary to walk home together.

He’d known there was something wrong last night, at the party, and he cursed himself for being distracted by thoughts of Valentine, and ignoring Clary’s odd behaviour when she came in from the fire.   He realised that he was starting to panic, and tried to calm himself, breathing deeply.   At that moment, his phone rang.   He nearly ignored it, focused on Clary, but something made him pull it from his pocket.   He looked at the screen – Alec.

As he answered, Alec spoke, without waiting for him to say anything.   “Jace.   Are you okay?   What’s happening there? I feel like I’ve been stabbed, but just over my _parabatai_ rune – are you injured?”

“It’s not me, it’s Clary.“ Jace’s voice broke as he said it.   “I don’t know what’s wrong with her.   She’s unconscious – not injured, we’re in the Institute, we went to a party last night and came back late.   I was asleep, I just came down and found her, I can’t get any response from her.”   Suddenly he realised why her motionless form was so familiar. He spoke with a sense of dread.   “She’s just like Jocelyn was, when Valentine came back.”

“Isn’t anyone there?   What do the other Shadowhunters say?” Alec’s voice was calming, solid.

“There’s no-one here, only the two of us.”   He explained, briefly, about the others, that they might not be back for several days, and that with Gwen away he had no way to contact them.

“Hold on a moment.” Jace could hear Alec speaking to someone in the background, then he came back on the phone.

“We’ll come straight away.   Magnus says he’s been to the Cardiff Institute before, he can bring us by Portal.”  

More voices in the background.

“Actually, he says you’d better take a photo of the front of the house and send it to me. He thinks the last time he visited was around 1910, so it’d be best to check it hasn’t changed.”

Ten minutes – and one photograph - later, Jace was sitting in the window seat, holding Clary.   He was talking to her in the hope that he might, somehow, reach her unconscious mind when he saw the air outside start to shimmer.   Gradually, the shape of a Portal formed, and a few moments later Alec and Magnus stepped through, holding hands.

As they arrived, he also saw Gwen walking down the track back towards the house.   She obviously realised what the Portal was, and speeded up, pulling a blade from underneath her jacket as she ran.   Despite his reluctance to let go of Clary, he figured he’d better go and meet Magnus and Alec.   He had a suspicion – admittedly based on his own instincts - that Gwen might attack first and ask questions later if she saw two unknown figures arriving in her front garden.

“ _Four days_ in the country and you’re already in trouble.   That’s quick work, even by Clary’s standards.” Magnus paid no attention to Gwen, despite her weapon, waving his hands and closing the portal in a shower of purple sparks.

“We haven’t done _anything_.” Jace felt an overwhelming sense of relief to see Alec, and be back with his parabatai. Magnus, however, was another matter.  

Magnus raised his eyebrows. “ _Nothing_ seems a little pessimistic, given the photos that Clary’s been sending round to everyone.”

“Would someone maybe tell me what’s going on here?”   Gwen had clearly come to the conclusion that Magnus and Alec weren’t dangerous invaders.   She put her dagger away, but stood a little back from the group, wary.  

Alec spoke for the first time, holding his hands out to Gwen, so that she could see he had no weapons.   “I’m Alec, Jace’s parabatai.   There’s something wrong with Clary – I could tell Jace was in trouble – so we came.”    

“By _portal_?”   Gwen still sounded dubious. “How?   There’s no portal to the Institute here.”

“Magnus – my partner - is a warlock”  

A corner of Jace’s mind noticed the confidence with which Alec said ‘my partner’, and was pleased for him, but it only lasted a moment.   “If you’ve all finished with the pleasantries, maybe we could go inside and try and do something to help Clary? Alec, Magnus – this is Gwen, who I told you about on the phone.”

As they came into the kitchen, Clary was still slumped against the window, breathing, but otherwise motionless. Magnus inspected her closely, while the others watched, lifting her eyelids, and then waving the others back and muttering in Chthonian. After a few moments, he looked up, shaking his head.  

“I can’t figure out what’s going on here, but it’s definitely not the same potion that Jocelyn used, I’m sure about that.   There’s no obvious spell residues, either.   She’s not physically hurt, and I’m sure her mind hasn’t been damaged, but she’s in some kind of deep trance state.”  

Jace was calmed by Magnus’ certainty that she was unhurt, but there was an obvious question: “So how do we get her out of it?”

“We need to figure out how she got like this, whether the trance is something she’s done herself, or whether somebody has put her into it.”  

Gwen shrugged. “I don’t see who else there could have been.   The protections on the Institute won’t let anyone apart from Shadowhunters in, unless one of us brings them.”   She waved at the mug, pad and pencil on the floor.   “To be honest, it just looks like she was sitting here on her own, drawing.”

Alec picked up the sketch book, and started to flip through it.   “So maybe we see what she was drawing.”

He paused after a couple of pages, looked up at Jace, and grinned. Gwen went round to look at the drawing, and started to giggle.

Jace suddenly realised which part of the pad they’d reached.   “She was practising life drawing. I don’t think you’re going to find any clues there.”

Magnus looked over Alec’s shoulder.   He raised an eyebrow. “Not bad.”   Jace didn’t ask whether he was referring to the drawing, or the model.

“I think we can reasonably assume, though, that Jace didn’t reduce her to this state. So perhaps we might look at some of the _other_ drawings?“   Magnus reached over, and turned the pages.   “So far, we can tell that she likes to draw Jace with no clothes on, and that she also likes David Tennant. I think we knew _that_ already from the photos that Izzy sent on to Alec – though he seems to be disappointingly overdressed in all of these drawings.”

Alec continued through the book. He paused after a couple of pages. “Is that Jocelyn when she was younger? These seem to be the latest pictures.”  He held the book out to Jace.  

“I think so, but I’m not sure why Clary would be drawing her particularly.   Unless it was something to do with last night.”   He shook his head, making an impatient sound. “We went to a party last night. _Something_ happened when she was sitting outside listening to music, but I have no idea what it was.   She came in, as if she was about to tell me something, but then we got distracted, and I never asked her what it was.”

Alec didn’t ask what had distracted them, knowing Jace’s tendency to blame himself for anything bad that happened.   “It could have been nothing, Jace, if it was serious, she’d have told you later, surely.”

“Look at these pictures, here.”   Gwen had the book now. “I think they must be the Wild Hunt.” She spoke slowly, thoughtfully. “She did ask me last night - after you went away, Jace – about Cantre’r Gwaelod, the Lowland Hundred.   I wonder if the Hunt were going over, last night, and she was talking to some of the Fae.   I know a fair few fae and half-fae were out there around the fire with the musicians.”  

She flipped to one of the other pictures of the Hunt.   “And look, there’s a name written here - Iolo Llwynog, Iolo the Fox.   I ought to know who that is, I’m sure I recognise it, but it’s not a faerie name. It’s Nuala’s writing, so that’s not from last night”

“Iolo Llwynog is a warlock, I know him from way back.”   Magnus took the book, and looked at the picture.

“Of course.” Gwen nodded slowly “I wasn’t thinking of warlocks, that’s why I didn’t think of him.   He lives in Cwm Ger, near Carmarthen. He has a lot of dealings with the Fae, I know that.”

Magnus looked unusually grim. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all if there were Fae involved here, somewhere. Quite _who_ thought it was a good idea to send you two”   and he indicated Jace and Clary “to _this_ country, of all places.”

Jace looked at him, seriously. He could see that for once, Magnus wasn’t being flippant.   “Why us? And why not here?”

“Why you?   Because you two – and Clary specifically – killed Sebastian, and the result, even though you didn’t intend it, was humiliation for the Fae.   And so the Nephilim chose to send the two of you to the country that has the thinnest line between the faerie and the mortal world, where humans and fae have been interbreeding for millennia, where half the population owes allegiance to them.”  He shook his head. “Sometimes I despair of the Clave.”

There was a moment’s silence, before Jace spoke.

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only person to despair of the Clave. They don’t exactly have form for thoughtful decision making in everyone’s best interests. But we’re here; except that Clary . . . ” he paused. “Isn’t.   So what now?”

“Should we go and see this Iolo . . tth . . . Iolo whatever?” asked Alec. “He seems like our only lead at the moment.”

Gwen laughed. “Maybe you should just stick to Iolo the Fox, that’s what his name means.”

“I don’t see we have any other ideas.” Jace looked at Magnus. He sounded reluctant.   “I know that you’re not going to want to, but would you help us, as you know him.”

Magnus sighed. “I didn’t necessarily sign up for eternal white knight status, Jace Herondale, just because I got together with Alexander. But yes, I suppose I will.”

“What about Clary? Do we take her with us?” Alec looked across at her motionless body.

Magnus shook his head. “No.   It’s purely a guess that Iolo may know something helpful, and he won’t be able to tell anything more from examining her than I can.   I think the best thing is going to be to leave her somewhere safe, well out of Wales.”

“London?” Alec looked at Magnus. “She’d be safe with Tessa and Jem.”

Magnus nodded. “I’ll open the Portal again.   We can go to just outside the Institute, warn them we’re coming, and then Jace can bring her through.”


	6. Chapter 6

Jace lay Clary down, very gently,  on the infirmary bed.  She felt light, fragile in a way that she never did when she was conscious, and he realised that without ever thinking about it, he had become dependent on her strength, physical and mental.  He always knew without question that she would be there when he needed someone; weapon in hand if it was a fight, ideas flowing out if they had a problem to solve.   Even when they had been fighting the Dark war, it had always been him who was the problem - possessed by Lilith; tied to Sebastian; full of heavenly fire - and Clary who found the solution.  

“Tessa says that Brother Enoch will be here very shortly.   Do you want me to wait here with you, Jace?”   Alec spoke gently, interrupting Jace’s thoughts.

“No.  I just want to be with her for the moment”

“Okay.   I’ll be around the Institute, if you want to find me.   Or shout, if there’s any change, and one of us will hear you.”   

Alec left Jace, and went to look for Magnus.  He found him in their bedroom, changing into a more practical outfit - by Magnus’ standards, at least - ready to travel.

After watching for a little while,  Alec spoke, a little abruptly.

“You don’t have to come, you know.   He’s my parabatai, I have to go, I know you’ll understand.  But there’s no reason that you have to come too.”

Magnus, sitting down on the bed, spoke lightly.   “Alec – I love you, always and forever, you know that.  I would go to the ends  of the earth for you, much less to the wilds of west Wales to visit a muddy, badly dressed warlock.”

Alec shrugged.  “But it’s true.  Why should you have to play white knight to my friends, just because we’re together.”

Magnus came over.  “Alec.”  He spoke seriously this time, his words punctuated with kisses.  “You are good.  And beautiful.   And wise.   I – am not.  I have my little bit of demon lurking inside me. Jace Herondale – god, most of the Nephilim – brings it straight to the top, and I say things I don’t necessarily mean.     Clary though – she’s like you.  Angel blood, without the arrogance.   I would help her anyway, for her own sake, not just for yours.”

Alec looked at him.  “Do you really think it’s something the Fae have done?”

“I do,  yes.   I can’t figure out what it is, yet, but it has fae, and revenge, written all over it.  And I don’t see why Clary, or even Jace, should suffer for what the Clave decides.   Particularly not if there is something that I can do about it.”   He was fierce now, his magic almost sparking from him, barely contained.  

Alec drew him closer, and kissed him, not gently, but hard and long.   His head and his heart loved Magnus for his laughter, his mercurial personality, that could slip from serious to joyful in the space of a moment.  But his body – always – responded to the raw power, the edge of danger.   It was what had drawn him to Jace, too, in the past.

“Oh god, Jace.”  He stepped back and spoke aloud, without realising.

Magnus waved his hand, and the door locked itself with a click.   “We will go, and we will get her back.  For herself, and for Jace.    But right now, the Silent Brothers are going to examine her, and there’s no point any of us going anywhere until we know if they find anything.   Tessa and Jem will look after Jace – we can have an afternoon for us.”   

 /

 

“I need to examine her now.  You will have to leave her with me.”   As always, the Brother’s voice rang silently through his head.   Unwillingly, Jace lay Clary down on the bed, and left the room.   He went through into the kitchen, but there was no-one else around, so he went up to the training room and relieved his feelings by throwing knives at the target.  He threw for a long time, mechanically, each knife hitting exactly where he aimed it, while his mind chased over and over the events of the last week; what he could have done differently; what clues he had missed.

“Jace?”   It was Tessa.   “Do you want to be alone – or would you like company?”

Jace shrugged, and taking his silence for agreement, Tessa came into the room, and sat down in the corner on a pile of mats.

“You know, ever since Jocelyn’s wedding, I’ve been hoping for a chance to meet you properly.   I’d hoped you and Clary would come to London while Jem and I were still here.   Not like this, obviously - but since you’re here, and waiting, maybe we could talk . I don’t know if anyone has told you this,  but I am your great, great, great grandmother.”

Jace had been looking down at the floor, spinning a knife in his hand, but at this he stopped abruptly, and looked at Tessa.

“No.  I didn’t know that.  How can you be . . . ?   I thought warlocks couldn’t . . .?”

“Have children?   No, they can’t normally, but I’m something of a one-off.   My mother was Nephilim, but unmarked.  Normally the children of Nephilim and demons would be stillborn, but because of that, and also because she was protected by the angel Ithuriel, I survived.”

Jace’s attention was caught, instantly.  “Ithuriel?”   

“Yes - the warlock John Shade summoned him with a spell, then trapped him in a pendant, which my mother always wore.”

“Did you know that my father.” He stopped, corrected himself. “Valentine, not my real father.   He trapped Ithuriel, too.”   Jace shuddered, remembering the angel, trapped and suffering, finally killing himself with the seraph blade.   His voice dropped, so low that Tessa could only just hear him. “Valentine . . . experimented. On me - and Clary. Feeding our mothers Ithuriel’s blood, while we were still in the womb.   Clary’s runes, the new ones that she draws, they come in visions from him, still.”

“The three of us have something more in common than descent, I think, Jace Herondale.   Ithuriel has guided all of our lives, and marked us.”   Tessa paused. “Magnus helped to rescue us, you know – Will Herondale and me – when I was kidnapped, and carried away to Wales by a man who would have destroyed all of the Nephilim.   Magnus helped to make the first Portal, and brought a rescue party to Cader Idris.”  

She stood up, went over to Jace, and laid her hand on his shoulder. “We thought we were going to die, Will and I. But we survived, and Ithuriel helped to protect us.”

 

* * *

_Clary’s head cleared, and she looked around her. She was sitting in an orchard, leaning against a huge old apple tree, the smell of fruit sweet around her. She heard the snapping of twigs, and sensed a presence nearby.    “Mark?”_

_“Not quite.   He’s a little busy elsewhere.”   A familiar figure appeared through the trees, and Clary’s head spun._

_“Sebastian?”_

_“That’s me.” He grinned, and leant against a nearby tree, hands in his pockets.   “Not expecting to see me here?”_

_“But . . .” She tried to think through the possibilities. “Am I dead?”_

_“Nope.   Your body is still safely alive and well, just rather a long way away.   Oh.” He stopped, and put his head on one side, in mock surprise.   “You thought you killed me.”_

_There didn’t seem to be much to say to this but: “Yes.”_

_“Try thinking a little harder.   Who did you see die?”_

_Her mind raced, then she realised. “Jonathan.”_

_“Slow, but you get there in the end, little sister.”_

_Clary spoke slowly. “The heavenly fire . . . it drove out the demon part of you.”_

_“Exactly.   When you betrayed me.”   and he lingered a moment on ‘betrayed’ “You killed the mortal part of me.   The part that wanted to be loved.   The rest of me returned to my mother, Lilith.”_

_He smiled. “I am no longer in need of love, little sister.   But I am still interested in revenge.”_


	7. Chapter 7

_“So where am I?”_

_“You are in Cantre’r Gwaelod, just as you expected” answered Sebastian._

_Clary shrank back, automatically, as Sebastian stepped towards her. “What are you going to do to me?”_

_“Nothing.” He laughed at her reaction, as his hands passed right through her. “I’m no more here in body than you are. You may not have killed me, but you did a very good job of driving me out of this dimension. For the moment, I can only come here as a projection.”_

_“So why did you bring me here?” she asked. Part of her didn’t want to know the answer, but she knew that the more information she could get, while Sebastian was willing to talk, the better._

_“I am somewhat . . . limited . . . in what I can do at the moment.   Strangely enough, the fae are also quite interested in taking revenge against you and Jace.   But right now, they aren’t willing to break the terms of the peace agreements, and attack either of you directly, either.”_

_“Surely kidnapping me is against the terms of the agreements?”_

_“Oh, we didn’t kidnap you.   If you remember, you came quite willingly, and your body is untouched. That has always been the law – if mortals come willingly, then the fae may keep them.”_

_“So that’s your revenge – to keep me imprisoned here?”_

_“Not exactly.”   Sebastian smiled. “I imagine that given time, the Nephilim or the Silent Brothers would work out how to bring you out of your trance, and back to your body.   But in my experience, both you and Jace prefer heroic action to patience.   I am expecting Jace to come here, looking for you.” He paused, then continued._

_“When he arrives, he will be offered an exchange. Your mind returned to safe and well to your body, if he will remain freely here in Cantre’r Gwaelod and serve the Fae.   Seven years is the usual term, I believe.   I expect that he’ll find it quite pleasant, on the whole; he’s very pretty, and Faerie women appreciate good looks.   Then he will be returned to the mortal world.   Of course, time runs a little differently here.   Around seventy years will have passed for you.   You’d be . . . eighty seven? Eighty eight? If you’re still alive, that is – as I understand it, Shadowhunters don’t generally have long lives.”_

_Clary tried to remain calm. “He doesn’t know I’m here, though.   And if you send him a message, to tell him where I am, he’ll be looking for a trap.”_

_“Oh, I should think you will have left enough clues. Why do you think we waited so long before bringing you here – you were so easy to reach, we could have brought you in that first dream, in New York.   Besides, even Nephilim should be able to guess that the Fae are involved somehow.   And if they don’t manage to work out where you are straight away, no doubt they will confront the Seelie Queen.   She will tell them the exact truth; that you heard Mark Blackthorn’s voice, and that she believes you to be here, in Cantre’r Gwaelod.”_

_He stepped back, a mocking look on his face. “You will live out your life without love, Clary; then Jace will do the same.”   Turning as if to walk away, he vanished._

* * *

“Brother Enoch has finished with Clary.” Jem’s voice called up the stairs.

Tessa stepped back from Jace, holding the door open for him. “Let’s go and see what he has to say.   Or at least,” she added, “what he’s going to _think_ at us.”

Brother Enoch looked sombre, Jace thought, though it was always hard to read the Brothers’ emotions.

“I have little to add to what Magnus has already told you, I’m afraid.   As he says, both her mind and her body are unharmed; she is simply in deep trance. I can find no suggestion that she has been coerced into this state, and I think we must assume that whatever has happened to her, she was a willing participant.”

“But Clary wouldn’t just do something like this . . .” Jace protested.

Magnus shook his head “Not intentionally.   But not coerced just means she wasn’t physically pushed into this state by a spell or a potion.   If it is the Fae who are behind it, we know that they are incredibly good at trickery and persuasion.”

“What Magnus says is true”   Brother Enoch’s thoughts were clear to all of them. “There is no physical coercion, but she may well have been taken by some kind of trick.”

“Is there anything you can do to bring her back?” Jem asked.   “If she’s not been taken by force, could we reach her somehow, and persuade her to return?”

“I cannot reach her through the trance, I’m afraid. My suggestion is that Tessa takes her to the Spiral Labryinth; the warlocks there are skilled at unravelling new and unknown magics.”

Tessa nodded. “I think you’re right.”   She looked at Jace.   “I would stay there with her; I worked there for many years after Will died, and I know the warlocks there well. If anyone can find out how to pick this apart, I think it is them. It would also be a very safe place for her to be if you are going to go back to Wales.”

Jace didn’t like the idea, but he couldn’t think of a better one. He didn’t want to leave her, but evidently, taking her with them wasn’t really feasible, and following up the clues from Clary’s sketch book seemed like the best way to discover what had happened to her.

“Are you going to go back to Wales too?” Jem asked Magnus.

“I am.   You may have noticed that I make a habit of joining Herondale boys in mad rescue journeys across Wales, and I see no reason to stop now.   At least this time I’ll have Alexander to dilute the insanity a little.”

/

A moment after they stepped through the Portal into the yard in front of the Institute, Gwen appeared from the front door.  

“What’s happening?   Did the Brothers manage to find out anything about what’s wrong with Clary? Has she woken up at all?”

Magnus sighed. “Is she _always_ like this?”

Jace answered her: “We’ve not found out anything more, really, but she’s in the Spiral Labryinth, and they’re trying to see if they can get anywhere. It still seems like the best lead is to go and see this warlock from her sketch book. How far is it, Gwen – could we go this evening?”

She shrugged. “I guess.   It’s not that far, maybe about an hour’s drive.”

Magnus shook his head. “I haven’t seen Iolo for a long time, but he was never the easiest of warlocks to deal with.”

“Which ones are?” muttered Jace under his breath.

“Personally, I’m not that keen on floundering up a Welsh valley in the mud and the dark.” continued Magnus, ignoring him.   “I’d suggest we have something to eat, and go tomorrow.”  

He looked at Gwen. “Do they sell takeaway pizza in this benighted country?”  

She giggled, and produced a pile of flyers.   “Papa Johns is good, but they don’t deliver this far out, so we’d have to go and get it.”

Magnus waved his hand, casually. “ _You_ might. I don’t.   Just ring and order pizza, Nephilim child, before we all die of starvation.”

 

**/**

“So what’s he like, then?” asked Alec, as they headed out of Cardiff the next morning.  

“Well, he has a _terrible_ dress sense.” answered Magnus. “And an even worse beard.   That was forty years or so ago, to be fair. It’s possible that his personal grooming has improved since then.”

“Have you ever _been_ to Cwm Ger?”   asked Gwen. “Terrible dress sense and an even worse beard probably describes half of the people there.”

“Only half?” countered Magnus.   “It’s obviously improved.”

“Not unless all the women used to have beards too.”

“Fair point.”   he admitted.

Jace sat in the back of the car next to Alec, fiddling with a dagger.   “Do you actually have anything useful to tell us about him, Magnus? Because _I_ thought we were going to try and find out why Clary is currently in an unreachable coma, as opposed to judging a best dressed warlock competition.”

“No need for a competition” answered Magnus, ignoring Jace’s tone. “I’d win, no-one else would bother taking part.”

“From what I’ve heard,” said Gwen, peaceably, “although he has a lot to do with the fae, he’s still reasonably friendly to Nephilim.”

She looked at a map “Hang on a sec – Magnus, we need to turn up there – I’d forgotten this last bit.”

“This doesn’t look like a road” Alec sounded dubious.

“Don’t be fussy, there’s plenty of worse tracks around here.   We just carry on up here for a bit, then there’s a place we can leave the car. They don’t really like people parking up there, but it’ll be ok for a while.

They left the car parked at the edge of a turning with a selection of old buses and vans, glamoured to blend unobtrusively into the trees and bushes around it.

“We need to walk up from here. I wouldn’t worry too much about glamours for us, they’re used to seeing all sorts go past, no-one’ll ask any questions.”

After they’d walked for a while Alec looked at Gwen curiously, and asked: “So what exactly is this place?”

“It’s sort of halfway between a commune and a village, I guess. People just live here, in tipis, mostly, obviously.”

“Mundanes?” asked Jace, curious despite himself.

Gwen shrugged “Some, but there’s a lot with Fae blood, even if they don’t know it. I guess it’s why they don’t really fit into the regular Mundane world.  There’s people like that all over Wales - you find someone living in a bender or a turf roofed roundhouse in the woods, you can put money on there being a little bit of faerie in them somewhere. Drives the mundie authorities round the bend, trying to keep them all in line and make them follow the rules.”

Jace didn’t ask what a bender was; he had a feeling he didn’t want to know. As they walked up the increasingly soggy path he was beginning to sympathise rather more with Magnus’ complaints about muddy Welsh valleys, and think more longingly of New York than he had ever imagined likely.

Finally, Gwen ducked into the woods, and took them down a miraculously dry and un-muddy path to a neat looking wooden hut with a few chickens pecking around outside.

“He’s gone up in the world,” said Magnus, approvingly. “Last time I was here he was living in some sort of strange round canvas affair.”

“Magnus.   How very . . . interesting . . . to see you here.”     A small figure with dark red hair - and, Jace noticed, a very long and rather strangely plaited beard – appeared from the hut.   “To what do I owe this delightful surprise?   It was a yurt, by the way.   Very comfortable, but the canvas rotted eventually.”

“Have you ever considered stone?   Boringly traditional, but so very long lasting.”

Jace stepped forwards, impatiently.   “I don’t know about you, Magnus, but I wasn’t particularly wanting to discuss the merits of different building materials.”

“And you are?” The warlock’s Welsh accent was suddenly pronounced.

“Jace Herondale.”

“Related to William Herondale?”

Magnus answered for Jace “He’s his great great great grandson, or something like that, I’ve lost track along the way.   And yes, he’s just as annoying.”

“So why did you come here, Jace Herondale?”

Gwen stepped in, hurriedly “Rydyn ni gyda problem, Iolo Llwynog. Bydd e yn posib i chi helpu ni?”

“Efallai. Beth chi esiau?”

Switching to English, she continued. “Jace here, and his girlfriend Clary Fray, are staying with us at the Institute down in Cardiff. Something very strange has happened to Clary - we think the fae, maybe the Wild Hunt might be involved somehow, and we wondered if you’d heard anything.”

“I’ve heard murmurings.”

“What sort of murmurings?” asked Jace.

The warlock shrugged.   “About revenge.   I think it would be fair to say that you two Shadowhunters are not the most popular people in Wales, right now.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

“I think we possibly guessed that revenge was involved somehow.   Do you know anything more specific, Iolo?”  Magnus had dropped his lighthearted tone completely now.

“Not a great deal.  But that’s not surprising;  it’s known that I don’t take sides, and also that I didn’t approve of the faerie war against the Nephilim.   Though I approved equally little of the Nephilim terms after the war.”

“None of us approved of those terms.”   Alec spoke suddenly.   “Magnus spoke against them, and the rest of us would have done, if we’d been part of the council.  Clary too, she didn’t want any of this to happen.”    

“She may not have done, but the fae don’t see shades of grey.  They know that I do, and that’s why they try and keep their talk of revenge away from me.”  

Magnus looked thoughtful   “Have any of the murmurings you’ve heard involved the Wild Hunt?   We don’t have much to go on, but we know that Clary has been drawing the hunt, I’ve got her sketchbook here.”

“So that’s why you’re here?”  Iolo looked curiously at his name, written beside the sketch.

“The writing is one of the Shadowhunters from the Institute.  We’re guessing that she suggested Clary talked to you – we can’t get hold of her though, they’re all out of reach in North Wales, dealing with an incursion.”

Iolo raised his eyebrows.  “Convenient timing.”

Jace hadn’t thought of that, but it made sense.   “Do you have any idea why she’d have suggested your name to Clary?”

The warlock shrugged. “I’ve had a fair bit to do with Gwyn ap Nudd over the years, and I’ve spent time in Cantre’r Gwaelod.”

“Before it was drowned?”   Gwen sounded excited.  “Did you know Taliesin?”

He laughed.  “I may be old, but I’m not that old, child.   Sadly not.”  

He looked at Clary’s sketch pad again, with interest.  “This is an incredibly powerful drawing, you know, I can almost smell the magic in it.   It’s really not something I’d expect a Shadowhunter to have produced – maybe a warlock whose talents ran that way. ”

Magnus took it from him, and looked at it more closely.  “Clary has always been able to do unexpected things with her drawings.  I know she can put physical objects into them, as well as  the new runes that she produced during the War.”   He shook his head.  “I’m losing my touch, Iolo, I didn’t think to look for magic _in_ the drawings.”

“Well, I’m glad to see something new for a change, Magnus, thank you for bringing it to me.  Do you want to bring the book into my hut, and we can see if we can find anything useful from it.”  

He opened the door, but as the three Shadowhunters started to follow, he blocked their way.  “No mortals in my house.”    He shook his head, disapprovingly.    “It may be made of wood, but it is still a warlock’s home.   Would you think of trying to enter Magnus’ dwelling?”

“Oh - sorry,”  Alec said, quickly, before Jace could make a sharp comment, probably including his presence in Magnus’ bed as well as his apartment.  

“Things _have_ become a little less formal in the last couple of hundred years, you know, Iolo”  said Magnus, as they went into the hut.

“Maybe mortals in New York have cleaner boots, Magnus.   Round here, anyone without magic stays outdoors.”

**/**

“So, did you find anything?”   Alec asked, as Magnus reappeared.

Magnus shrugged.   “We had a look at it, but to be honest, I think Clary’s drawings all have a bit of magic about them.   There didn’t seem to be anything particularly different about the picture of the Hunt.  Come to that, I think Jace might want to check that he isn’t missing bits of his soul, given the power in some of those drawings.”  

“It took the two of you a long time to come to that conclusion,” said Jace, suspiciously.   

“Well, you know, Iolo got out a bottle, we had a bit of a chat about the old days, that sort of thing.”

“So you left the three of us out here in the cold while you reminisced about your warlock pasts?   Great.”

“Something like that,” said Magnus, blandly, as the hut door opened again.

**/**

“If you’re serious about going to Cantre’r Gwaelod, Magnus, you know you’ll need someone with fae blood to go with you.”

Magnus nodded.  “I was hoping that you’d have an answer to that one, Iolo.”

“I may do.   But it’s a serious favour you’re asking.   I’ve worked very hard to stay neutral.”

“And we’re not asking you to change that.  All we want to do is to speak to Gwyn ap Nudd, and find out what they have done.”

“Very well.  I hope I won’t regret this.”  The warlock turned as if to go back into his hut, but instead walked around to the back of it, and whistled loudly into the woods, as if calling back a dog.

“Iolo?  Were you looking for me?”   A small, thin figure appeared through the trees - Jace couldn’t work out whether it  was male or female, nor how old, though he guessed perhaps mid teens.

“I was indeed.   Magnus, Nephilim, this is Aderyn.   I think that if you explain your problem, he may be willing to help you.”

“What is it you’re wanting, now?”

Jace explained, briefly, what had happened to them. How he and Clary had ended up part of the Dark war, and how she had killed Sebastian,  in order to prevent him destroying the mortal world. That now, Clary was in an unreachable coma, her spirit apparently kidnapped.

“The Clave’s peace terms with the Fae were none of our doing, but it seems from what Magnus and Iolo say that Clary and I are being blamed for the Faeries’ humiliation, and they are taking revenge.   If the Wild Hunt are involved, then I want to go to Cantre’r Gwaelod, and treat with them for her return.”

“But you need a faerie, or someone with faerie blood to go with you.”   It was a statement, not a question.

Jace nodded, silently.

Aderyn shrugged.  “I don’t see why I shouldn’t take you.   I can’t help you once we’re there, though –  the fae won’t listen to me, and besides, it’s no business of mine on either side.”

“All I want is help to get there.”  

“Can you ride?”  

“Yes” answered Jace, Magnus and Gwen, as Alec asked “Why?”

“I can take two of you, if Iolo will let you borrow his horses.”

“Jace and I will come with you.” said Magnus.  He looked at Alec.   “I know you’ll want to go, but Jace has to be there, I think, and since I’m not Nephilim, and I spoke out against the peace terms, they may listen to me.”

Alec shrugged.  “So what do Gwen and I do while you two are running off on your heroic rescue mission?”

“Stay here, unless you can drive,” said Gwen.   “Because I can’t.  Tony’s not going to be impressed that we’ve left the Institute empty, either.”

**/**

To Gwen’s obvious relief, Alec had been happy to drive them both back to the Institute, and to stay there with her until the others returned.   Jace couldn’t argue with Magnus’ logic, much as he would have liked his parabatai at his side for a rescue misson.  Besides, Alec couldn’t really ride, having spent most of his childhood in New York.

When Aderyn reappeared with Iolo’s horses,  Jace was impressed, despite himself.  Even in his days in Idris, he had rarely seen such gorgeous creatures.  Both must have been at least 17 hands, with fine bone structure, and glossy black coats.

‘What do you think?” asked the faerie boy, proudly.  

“They’re beautiful.” Jace answered, honestly, but without enthusiasm.   It was a long time since he’d had the chance to ride, and in other circumstances, he would have been overjoyed at the opportunity.  Right now, though, he was wondering how far it was to the coast, and how long it was going to take them.  

Magnus went up to one of them, and stroked its nose, gently.  He spoke as if he were reading Jace’s thoughts.  “They are beautiful indeed.  You realise that they aren’t ordinary horses?”

After a moment, he went on.  “They have a look of Balios, from the Institute, back in the days when we travelled everywhere by horse.  He brought Will Herondale from London to Cadair Idris in three days.”

“You’re right, Magnus, as always,” said Iolo, reappearing from his hut.   “He stroked the other horse.  This is Gwanwyn, and you have Gaeaf, there.   They’re both descended from that line, as is Aderyn’s horse, Castan.   I pulled some favours in around the start of the twentieth century when the Nephilim got rid of their stables in London.   They’ll carry you to Borth in under four hours, Shadowhunter.”

“Okay, I’m impressed,” said Jace.  “But is there a reason we couldn’t go by car?”

“You can, providing you don’t mind walking the 20 miles on into Cantre’r Gwaelod.   I would suggest that my horses may be a better solution.”


	9. Chapter 9

_After Sebastian vanished, Clary sat for a long time, waiting to see if he would reappear.   She had no idea how long she waited; she listened closely, but the orchard was silent now.   After a while, she decided that she might as well explore. Perhaps if she could find some of the fae she could negotiate, try and persuade them to let her go without taking Jace. At least, she thought, anything would be better than sitting here helplessly._

_She walked through the orchard for a long time. Although every tree was heavy with fruit, and the grass was cropped short below, there was no sign of anyone harvesting, or any animals grazing. Eventually the trees began to thin, and she came out into a grassy meadow, but there was still no hint of life; no animals or birds, much less any faeries. Across the meadow she saw a formal hedge, neatly trimmed. She paused for a moment, then went on; as far as she could see, she had nothing to lose._

* * *

Magnus was right, Jace thought; these were no ordinary horses.   Although they hadn’t put on any glamours before leaving, they passed through villages and by walkers without notice.   Gwanwyn and Gaeaf kept up an unfaltering speed as Aderyn guided them down narrow roads, across fields, over hedges and through green lanes.  Jace realised after the first few minutes that they were also unbelievably sure footed, spotting obstacles and rabbit holes and avoiding them before he had seen them himself.

He watched the half-faerie boy as they rode, wondering who he was, and why he lived - if he did - with the warlock.  He couldn’t help but be impressed by his riding skills;  Aderyn sat his chestnut horse as if he were part of it, bareback, with only a light rope halter in place of a bridle.  He directed Castan with a word, or a gentle touch with his knee, glancing back occasionally to make sure the others were still with him.  

Jace thought they must have been riding for around two hours when Aderyn slowed and brought Castan to a walk. “We should take a break, and have something to eat.   We can only enter Cantre’r Gwaelod at low tide, so it won’t hold us up to stop for a little while.”

Stopping, he swung lightly down to the ground. “There’s a village five minutes walk down the lane where we can get some food.   The horses will be fine here, they’re used to waiting for me.”

“Have you always lived in Cwm Ger, then?” asked Jace, curiously, as they headed to the shop.

Aderyn shrugged “Ever since I can remember.   My mother’s a faerie, she met my father at a party there, we think.   She brought me and dumped me outside Iolo’s house when I was about four years old.   Told him my name, and to give me to my father; but she didn’t know his name, just said he was reasonably good looking for a mortal, with a brown beard.   No-one wanted to claim me, so I ended up living between the tipis, with who-ever would take me in at the time.”

Jace didn’t really know what to say, but he was surprised when Magnus spoke.  

“It’s hard, being neither one thing nor the other, isn’t it.”

Aderyn nodded. “I spend a lot of time with the horses.   They don’t care what you are.” He paused a moment.   “Iolo’s always been pretty good to me.”

“A lot of warlocks find their human parents aren’t so keen on them once they realise what they’re bringing up.   And demons aren’t noted for their parenting skills, ” Magnus added, dryly.   “I imagine Iolo could empathise with your situation.”

 

/

_As Clary got closer, she could see an archway set into the high hedge, with a decorative gilded gate. When she reached it, she found it was just held closed with a sliding bar. She drew back the latch, and went through into the garden beyond._

_In other circumstances, Clary would have been entranced by the faerie garden. Paths of white crushed marble surrounded flowerbeds in a myriad of shapes and sizes; all filled with tall growing roses. There were flowers in every conceivable colour, from the palest yellows and lilacs, through bright scarlets and oranges, to deep purples that were almost black. As she walked past the bushes, the scent was almost overwhelming._

_She realised after a few moments that the flowerbeds formed a geometric pattern, and that she must be heading for the centre of the garden. She passed through another hedge, this time made of a tangle of pink roses.   The inner garden surrounded by the hedge was circular, still filled with roses, but with seats of white marble surrounding a fountain, where three dolphins sprayed jets of water high into the air._

_A balustrade surrounded the fountain, and she went and leant against it, holding her hands out so that the water could play over them._

_“Delightful, isn’t it?”_

**/  
**

They came over the rise of a hill, and the sea glittered away in front of them in the fall sunshine, gentle waves breaking the surface with white.   Aderyn brought them to a halt, and the three sat on the horses, looking down at it.   Magnus broke the silence after a moment.

“Very pretty.   But how do we get to Cantre’r Gwaelod?”

Aderyn looked a moment longer, a wistful expression on his face, Jace thought.

“We need to carry on a little, to Borth.   It won’t take long, it’s about half an hour’s ride from here.   The tide should be out enough by then for us to reach the path.”

Jace watched the sea as they rode along the coast, three abreast. The splashing of the waves was soothing, and he let himself relax, for a moment, his mind wandering, thinking about Clary.   He was just imagining the two of them here, on the cliffs, Clary maybe getting out her sketch book to draw the sea while he lay in the sunshine, when he saw something leaping in the sea.   He pointed, and Aderyn looked down. “Dolphins - lots of them in Cardigan Bay, there are.”  

 

**/  
**

_Clary turned, startled, to see Sebastian again, standing in front of one of the largest rose bushes. He picked one of its pale pink flowers, and held it out to her._

_“They’re on their way to us now, so make the most of it while you’re here.   Then you’ll be able to imagine what Jace is doing, when you’re back in the mundane world.’_

_“It’s not going to happen, Sebastian.   They know you, they’re not going to fall for your tricks.”_

_“Oh, they’re not going to see me – or you.   They’ll meet with Gwyn ap Nudd, as they expect.”_

**/**

They passed through the village of Borth, and out onto the beach.   The tide was low now, exposing a wide strip of sand.  

“It’s almost time.”   Aderyn sounded expectant, a little tense.

“Have you been here many times before?” asked Magnus.

“Only once, I came with Iolo, even he has to have someone with Faerie blood with him to take the path.   But I don’t think anyone would ever forget it once they’ve been to Cantre’r Gwaelod.”   He paused, then pointed. “Look.   Can you see it?   Anyone with the Sight should be able to, though without faerie blood they can’t step on to it alone.”

Jace looked.   The sea drew back a little further as each wave retreated.   He focused, using his Sight, and suddenly he saw it.   Intermingled with the sea, he could see trees, still shadowy and indistinct, and within them, there was a paved road, gleaming wetly silver, leading out into the bay.

“Come on!”   Aderyn sounded excited now, urging Castan on towards the path.

Jace and Magnus followed, their horses splashing through the waves at first, but then clattering onto the paved road.   As they all reached the path, the sea melted away. The shadowy trees became solid around them, and they were riding through an open beech woodland, bright green leaves shading into yellows and golds.

**/**

_“They’re on the path.”_

_Sebastian didn’t sound so calm now, Clary thought, though he was still trying to sound bored and indifferent ._

_She thought of trying to persuade him to change his mind, but she was struggling to think of a reason. It was true, she had betrayed him; had agreed to stay with him, then stabbed him._

_“Why are the Fae helping you?   Jace and I didn’t make the peace terms.” It was the only thing she could think of, and it sounded weak, even to her._

_Sebastian shrugged. “They want revenge on the Nephilim, I showed them a way to do it. They don’t care much who it is, and besides, causing you two pain will hurt your families and friends.”_

_“How can you even be here, anyway? I thought that when demons” she lingered on this word, wanting to hurt Sebastian now, if she could “were killed, they couldn’t re-form for a long time.”_

_“Do you not remember, little sister” and it was Sebastian’s turn to linger over words, now. “We have a special link, you and I.   I can always reach you, even when you are in the mortal world, and I am . . . not.”_

_“But the fae – how could you come to them, to suggest this?”_

_“I couldn’t.   They called me.”_

**/**

The three of them rode in silence along the path. Time seemed to have faded to a blur, sliding in and out of existence like the flickers of sea that Jace occasionally saw out of the corners of his eye. He couldn’t have said how long they’d been riding when the trees started to thin, and the horses’ hooves crunched on a path that had changed to crushed white gravel.

“We’re almost there.”   Aderyn’s voice was unexpectedly loud, and Jace realised how silent the countryside was; no birdsong, or animal noises in the woodland.

They were riding through parkland now, the white path leading through closely cropped grass, single large oak trees dotted here and there. Aderyn pointed, and Jace could see the outline of buildings faintly ahead.   As they grew closer, he could see tall spires rising up through a soft mist, surrounded by a tall, white wall.

“We need to focus, Jace.” Magnus spoke in an undertone. “This whole country is magic; it’s easy to lose yourself in it. If you have to, cut yourself, anything to stay in reality.”

Taking Magnus’ advice, he slid his finger along the blade of the dagger tucked in his belt. As the pain bit, suddenly his vision cleared, and the dreamlike quality of the journey melted away. He hadn’t forgotten Clary’s state, exactly, he realised, but it had faded to the back of his mind.

“This is it”   Aderyn obviously wasn’t affected in the same way. On the contrary, he seemed more alive than ever, alert to every change in the scenery around them.   Jace wondered idly if the countryside was silent for him, or if he heard animals and birds audible only to faerie ears. Then he cursed himself for losing focus again, and reached for the dagger.

They drew up at the gates of the faerie town, and dismounted. Fully alert now, Jace stepped forwards, and knocked twice, the sound ringing with surprising force.

“Be polite, Herondale,” Magnus muttered, as the gate opened.

“Who are you, strangers that come to us here?” A slight figure – a woman, Jace thought – tall, with golden brown hair and blue eyes.

“Aderyn, of Cwm Ger.   My mother is faerie.” The woman nodded.

“Magnus Bane, warlock.”

“Jace Herondale. I’m looking for my girlfriend, Clary Fray.”

“Nephilim?”

“Yes.”

“Enter.”   Her voice was less friendly now. “You wish to see Gwyn ap Nudd?”  

Magnus answered. “We do, if he will see us.”

She nodded. “I think he will. I will take you to him. You may bring your horses.”

The streets around them were busy, filled with faeries in old fashioned dress; the women wearing brightly coloured dresses with long skirts, the men in leather jerkins and loose shirts over fitted, moss green breeches.   The buildings were all built of the same white marble as the town wall, interspersed with wooden stalls piled high with fruit, cloth and other goods. The effect was cheerful, but Jace was wary now, and resisted the pull of the faerie magic, focusing on the woman leading them, and trying not to look too closely at the town.

They came to a halt outside a large building, perhaps a town hall.   A faerie man waited on the steps outside, and came down to greet them.

Jace wasn’t sure what he’d expected Gwyn ap Nudd to look like, probably beautiful, like the Seelie queen.   But he was small, slight, with dark hair and brown skin, deeply lined. The force of his magic, though, was unmistakeable.   He looked only at Jace.

“What do you want from me, Nephilim boy?”

“I want my girlfriend back. I think you have her.”

The faerie smiled, without humour “I thought she was in London.”

“You know what I mean.   I want her mind back.”

“And tell me why I should give her to you.”

Magnus stepped forwards, now. “Why are you doing this?   The Wild Hunt played no part in the war, and you have not been affected by the peace terms.   But kidnapping mortals is against the Accords, and the Nephilim will not take it lightly.”

‘So why do I see two teenagers and a warlock, rather than the might of the Clave?” He spoke mockingly. “The girl came willingly, I think you know that.”

“By trickery.”  

“Maybe. But it remains, she came willingly.”   He shrugged. “I am happy to make an exchange.”

“An exchange?” asked Magnus.

“I think it unlikely the Clave will worry that much about one rather troublesome girl, daughter of the man who tried to destroy them.   But another mortal life, given freely, will do just as well for me.” He paused, looking at Jace.

“What do you think, Nephilim.   You stay here with us, and serve us for seven years, and we free your girlfriend.   A good bargain, I think?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cantre’r Gwaelod, or the Drowned Hundred, is a well known Welsh myth. The version of the land in this chapter, and particularly the rose garden, is very largely borrowed from the final book of Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising sequence, Silver on the Tree. I have made the path start at Borth, though, where the remains of a long drowned forest can still be seen sometimes at very low tides when winter storms have washed the sands clear.


	10. Chapter 10

Aderyn spoke, abruptly. “A mortal life, freely given?”

“That’s it, boy.” Gwyn ap Nudd looked a little surprised.

“How do we know that you will keep your side of the bargain?”

“I give my word. You should know that I cannot break it.”

Aderyn was obviously forming his question carefully. “So, you will free Clary Fray, in exchange for seven years service from a mortal life?”

“Yes, I will.” He sounded irritated, now.

“Then I volunteer,” said Aderyn, decisively.

“You?” said Jace, astonished.

“I’m mortal - I have faerie blood, but I’m mortal, all the same”

“I think I understand,” said Magnus, softly. “That’s why you’re here with us, perhaps?”

Aderyn shrugged. “I don’t fit in in the Cwm, I never will. I’m not human enough for the mortals, and I’m too mortal for the Fae.”   He sounded sad, now. “And maybe, if I’m here for seven years, I’ll find my mother.”

Suddenly, Gwyn ap Nudd laughed, a rolling, bass sound surprising from his slight form.   “Iolo the Fox, who else.”   He shook his head.   “I keep my promises. Your girlfriend will be awake within the hour, Nephilim. And I will even give you that same hour to leave my country. But you must be gone by then, since you no longer have a companion with faerie blood to keep the road clear for you.   Now go.”

Jace clasped Aderyn by the hands, unable to voice his gratitude. Magnus, though, swung straight up on to his horse. “Shift, Shadowhunter. We haven’t got long, and we’re twenty five miles out at sea. There’s not much even I can do about that if we don’t make it within the hour.”

* * *

_Clary stood for a long time by the fountain, having come to the conclusion that no matter where she went, she wouldn’t meet anyone but Sebastian. She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for – would she see Jace? Would he realise this was a trick? Would she be back in the Institute, with him gone?_

_Then, suddenly, Sebastian reappeared, flicking back into existence, his face twisted with anger._

_“I will stop them,” he said, viciously. “And if I don’t, know this Clarissa Morgenstern, that I will not rest until I have come for the two of you.”_

 

* * *

Their horses trotted swiftly back through the town to the walls, where the gatekeeper stood waiting, swinging the heavy oak doors open to let them pass. Coming onto the path, they broke into a canter, then a gallop, through the parkland and into the trees.

This time, though, as they entered the woodland, it didn’t feel light and open, but dark, with heavy shadows falling across the path. At first, Jace thought it was just night falling, but an increasing sense of menace closed around him, as if the trees were drawing in towards them.

Magnus led, urging the horses faster, but as the darkness increased, they slowed, and Jace saw that the path was breaking up in front of them, no longer laid out straight and smooth ahead of them, but twisting into the trees, unseen.

“Are we running out of time?” he asked Magnus. It didn’t feel as if they’d been riding for more than a few minutes, but as he’d found earlier, time was a slippery concept here.

“No, not at all. Someone is trying to stop us, and I don’t think it’s Gwyn ap Nudd.   Be ready to fight.”

As he spoke, Jace placed part of the sense of menace, a familiar scent reaching him. “Demons,” he said, shortly, drawing a seraph blade and naming it.

Magnus nodded. “I’d stay on the horse if you can. They have magic of their own, and they’ll do their best to get us home.   If we get separated, don’t waste time trying to find me; our only chance now is to try to fight through them, keep on moving, and head for the shore.”   At that moment, a crowd of demons surged out of the trees, surrounding them.

As Magnus had predicted, the horses fought with them, battering down with their hooves as Jace slashed at the demons with his long blade.    He could see Magnus’ horse doing the same, outlined in flashes of blue light as the warlock shot bolts of magic at his attackers, slowly fighting his way through the mass.

“Run!” he shouted suddenly, as they thinned, urging his horse to a gallop.   Jace did the same, and Gaeaf gathered his strength, leaping over a final crowd of demons to follow his brother.

In that moment, though, the path suddenly twisted, and moved sideways.   Despite Gaeaf’s desperate effort to turn mid leap, a tree was in their path. Jace saw the branch a fraction of a second before it hit him, knocking him unconscious and sweeping him from the horse to fall on the ground.

**/**

Magnus stood on the beach and swore, fluently and extensively. He had heard Gaeaf’s hoof beats behind him, hadn’t turned in his headlong rush to check that Jace was still in the saddle, trusting to the Shadowhunter’s unmatchable fighting skills.   The moment he reached the shore, and saw the riderless horse behind him, he realised why his way had cleared so suddenly.

Coming to a stop, he thought for a moment, standing beside the horses. Then he whispered in Gwanwyn’s ear, and in Gaeaf’s, and stepped back.   “Go home!” he ordered, and the two leapt once, and were gone.   Then he drew a portal, flickering on the beach in front of him in the sunset, and stepped into it.

* * *

Clary opened her eyes, her head spinning for a moment. She blinked, clearing her vision, and looked around her to see an unfamiliar small room, with warm wood panelled walls.

The door opened, and a young woman came in. After a moment, Clary recognised her:   “Tessa.”

As she awoke fully, her memories came flooding back; the calls from Cantre’r Gwaelod; the faerie country; the rose garden.

She sat up, abruptly.   “Sebastian – he’s back. Does he have Jace?”

Tessa sat on the end of the bed. She looked puzzled.   “We thought you had been taken by the Fae, maybe the Wild Hunt?   Jace and Magnus went to speak with Gwyn ap Nudd in Cantre’r Gwaelod.”

“It was a trap.   Sebastian is working with the fae. They took me as bait, so that they could exchange me for Jace.”

“Are you sure it was Sebastian, Clary? I thought that -”

“That I’d killed him.   I thought that too.” Clary said, despairingly.   “But I only killed his human part – he must have been so much demon, in the end, that side of him was just driven back to Lilith.”

Tessa thought for a moment, and her calmness helped Clary keep a hold on herself, and fight back her rising panic.

“I’d best take you back to the Institute.   We’re in the Spiral Labyrinth; you shouldn’t be here now you’re conscious anyway, and then we can find out what has actually happened.”

 

* * *

 

Magnus stepped out of the Portal outside the Cardiff Institute, calling out as he arrived.  Gwen and Alec had obviously been waiting in the big kitchen, and came straight out to meet him.  

He gestured towards the Portal.   “We need to go to London, Alec and get to Clary; I’ll explain when we get there.”

Alec looked at Gwen.   “Sorry – I’ll call you as soon as I can, let you know what’s happening. . .”   Magnus took his hand, before he’d even finished speaking, and pulled him into the waiting blur.

Jem opened the Institute door to Alec and Magnus.   Clary was behind him in the hallway; one look at Magnus’ face told her:   “You left Jace.”

“I didn’t _try_ to leave him, Clary,” said Magnus, unusually defensive. “We were attacked, and I thought he was following; I still don’t understand how he came off the horse.”

“He didn’t stay as an exchange?”

Magnus shook his head. “I think Iolo guessed what was happening. He sent us with a half faerie boy, who wanted to stay in Cantre’r Gwaelod, and he offered himself as an exchange.”

“So Sebastian attacked you as you left.” It made sense – his rage, and his words as he left her.

“Sebastian?”

She nodded. “He’s back – he was with me in Cantre’r Gwaelod. He planned all of this.”

Magnus sighed. “I know Valentine was persistent, but this is getting ridiculous. Jace killed Sebastian once, and then you killed him _again_.”

“Yes, well it didn’t work that time, either.”

“And let me guess, you two aren’t on his list of bestest friends any more?”

Alec broke in. “He can’t have hurt Jace, though.   Because I’d feel it, through the parabatai rune.   That’s how I knew something was wrong when he found you unconscious.”

Clary felt a momentary hope “And you don’t feel anything?”

He shook his head. “A twinge, earlier, but nothing really. As if he were in a fight, and a demon caught him a little. The sort of thing that happens all the time.”

“I’d imagine that was when he came off the horse,” said Magnus.

Tessa spoke now. “So we think that Jace is still in Cantre’r Gwaelod, but – for the moment at least – he’s probably unhurt. If we could reach him, we ought to be able to get him back. He didn’t volunteer to stay with the Faerie, and he knows well enough not to touch their food or drink, so they have no grounds to keep him. But we need to get to him before Sebastian is able to take him somewhere else.”

“That’s all very well, but unfortunately, it’s a little tricky getting into Cantre’r Gwaelod. We can’t just turn up and knock on the door, what with it being under the sea.”

Alec spoke, slowly “Could Clary reach him, through her drawings? You said there was so much magic in them, he might be missing part of his soul . . .”

“I was _joking_ , Alec.” Magnus paused, and shook his head. “I suppose it might be possible.” He looked at Clary. “You can do a lot of things I wouldn’t have thought likely.   What do you think?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried to take something out of a drawing that wasn’t there – I put the Cup into it, so I knew it was there to take back.”   She didn’t feel hopeful, but doing anything had to be better than sitting here talking. “I could try.   Do you have my sketchbook?”

Alec shook his head. “It’s in Cardiff.”

“That’s okay, I think. I can draw him from memory.” It was true; she could call up every detail of his face, laughing, sitting over a coffee in Taki’s, poised, weapons in hand, ready to fight.   As she visualised him, how she would draw the picture, runes came to her, floating in her vision as they had when she’d drawn the Cup, and she felt suddenly hopeful.

“You know, I might be able to do it, but it would be easier to concentrate on my own. Do you have paper and a pencil?”

Tessa nodded. “Why don’t you come into the Library. There’s paper there, and it’ll be quiet.”

**/**

Clary sat alone in the library, paper in front of her.   She saw Jace, and the runes, and moved between the two, drawing swiftly, trying to bring him to life on the paper.   As she finished, a final rune came to her, and she added it, over his heart.  

Then, as she had with the Cup, she reached into the drawing. This time, though, she met a warm body, strong hands clasped hers, and she was pulled forwards herself, tumbling headfirst into the paper.


	11. Chapter 11

Jace woke, reaching up to feel where the branch had hit him. His head was sore, but he wasn’t bleeding; other than a few bruises from his fall, he seemed to be unhurt. It was definitely evening now, and the light was fading, but the sense of menace had gone. Standing up, he looked around him for the path. The horses had gone, but perhaps he would be able to run for the shore and make it in time.

At first, he thought he must have been thrown a little way away from the path. He worked his way systematically around the spot where he had woken, marking trees to make sure he didn’t stray further into the woods. After a few minutes search, though, he was forced to the conclusion that somehow he was much further from it than he could have imagined, lost in the trees.

“Head for shore.”   That was his only option now, as far as he could see. They were in the west of Wales, the sun would set over the sea – so to reach dry land, he should keep the setting sun behind him.    

He set off, running through the woodland, setting a fast pace, but pausing every few minutes to check his bearings, and make sure he was still heading due east.   The third time he stopped, he felt a tugging, as if someone were trying to contact him. He pushed the thought from his mind, thinking it must be the faerie magic working again, trying to pull him off course.   But then, Clary’s image formed in his mind, irresistably, and without thinking, he reached up. Unseen hands clasped his, pulling him upwards, out of the trees and the faerie country.

* * *

A moment later, he found himself clutching at Clary, frantically kicking and splashing, pulled down by the weight of wet clothes.

Trying to kick off his boots and get out of his jacket, he saw that she was equally fully dressed and struggling. He spluttered, letting go of her and spitting out salt water.   “Couldn’t you have rescued me on dry land?”

“I was trying to get you to the Institute,” she retorted, also spitting out a mouthful of sea water, and struggling out of a sodden sweater.

“All very well to be away from the faeries.   But how far out are we?” He kicked around, looking away from the sun. He could see the town, he thought, but it must be at least a mile away.   “How well can you swim?” he added, pointing.

“Okay” replied Clary. “Better without clothes.”

“Yes, well, I like you better without clothes, too.”   They both started swimming for the shore, Jace trying to keep an easy pace, that wouldn’t tire them. “But generally somewhere less wet, Fray.”

After a while, they both stopped talking, too tired to do anything other than keep taking the next stroke.   The sea had been calm when they were pulled into it, but it was getting properly dark now, and a breeze had come up.   The waves splashed over them, making it harder to breathe, as well as swim.  

A crowd of dark bodies came around them, and he wondered wildly if it was faeries, somehow pulling them back down into Cantre’r Gwaelod.  Then he felt himself supported, looked again, and realised what the shapes were.

“Dolphins” he gasped. He could see Clary, too, being lifted out of the sea.   “I’d hold on, I think they’re trying to help us.”  

“I’ve heard stories of dolphins rescuing shipwrecked sailors – I always thought they were old wives tales.”

He laughed, with relief as much as anything else. “Me too. We should have known better, of all people. All the stories are true, right?”

**/**

They lay on the beach, shivering and laughing simultaneously, holding each other close. Jace pulled away, looking at the two of them; wet, bedraggled, but alive.  

“What do we do now, Fray?   I don’t suppose you have a stele sewn into your bra to draw us a Portal home?”

Clary laughed, and pulled him close to her again. “No, but it’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll do that once we get back to the Institute.”

Suddenly serious, she put her hand up to his face, touching him gently.

“Sebastian’s plan was for the fae to keep you for seventy years, you know.” She shivered at the thought of Jace trapped there, in Cantre’r Gwaelod, for the rest of her lifetime.  

He kissed her, gently, “I’d have escaped and come back to you, you know that.”

She shook her head. “But what if you forgot me; they can do strange things, we know that.”  

Jace rolled over, so that he was lying on top of her, propped up on his elbows, looking down into her face.

“Clary.” Now he was utterly serious. “You brought me back from death itself. Do you think I could forget you, whatever they did to me?”

She shook her head, unable to speak.

They lay quietly then, for a long time, holding each other, and watching the shadows of the dolphins in the dark sea.

 

* * *

“This is going to be your Peru, you know that.   In fact, it’s worse.  At least _I_ never made it to the front page of a national newspaper wearing only my underwear.”

They were sitting around the table in the Cardiff Institute; Magnus and Alec, Jace and Clary, and Gwen, a copy of the Western Mail in front of them.

AMERICAN TEENS MIRACLE ESCAPE FROM BOAT WRECK

The headline took up most of the front page, with the remainder of the page filled with a grainy picture of Jace and Clary.

“So tell us what you would have done then, Magnus.” Jace sounded dangerous. “You’re on a beach, in the middle of nowhere, after sunset, in October, soaking wet and wearing only your underwear.”

Magnus grinned, wiggling his fingers in a shower of blue sparks.   “I’d draw a Portal, of course. Go somewhere warmer.”

“But not Peru.” added Alec.

“What is it with Peru?” asked Gwen.

“Long story,” the others replied simultaneously; apart from Magnus, who grinned, and said “I’ll tell you sometime when you’re older.”

“So do we tell the Clave that Sebastian is back?”   Clary asked, later, after the relief of being home had subsided.

“I think we have to.” answered Jace, reluctantly.  

“And that he’s looking for personal revenge on you two,” added Alec. “Don’t forget that.”

“My mom is going to _love_ this. It was bad enough me being here as a Shadowhunter already. She’s going to kidnap me and take me back to New York forever, I reckon.”

"Guess I'd better practice my binding-and-forgetting spells, then?"

"You dare, Magnus." Clary threw an apple at him, across the table.


	12. Chapter 12

Jace lay on their bed, idly flipping through Clary’s sketchbook the next morning. She’d found it last night in the Institute sitting room - he assumed that either Alec or Gwen must have brought it back from Cwm Ger.

“D’you reckon you could do that picture thing again?” he asked.   “Could be a useful trick.”

“I don’t really know.” She shrugged.   “It was another of the Angel’s runes that finished it off; most of them seem to be a one-off thing. I think it might have only worked because it was you, anyway,”

“Hey, I didn’t see this one before.” He held the book up. “It’s pretty. Is it somewhere round here?”

Clary came and looked over his shoulder, then recoiled, seeing the drawing he was pointed to.  

“I didn’t draw that.”

She turned the page. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised at the next picture.     Following the lightly drawn sketch of a circular garden, roses, a dolphin fountain, came a heavily outlined figure, in black pencil.

“Sebastian” Jace said it for her.

There were words beneath the picture:  

_Golau arall yw tywyllwch  
I arddangos gwir brydferthwch_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian's final words in Clary's sketchbook come from a Welsh folksong, Ar Hyd y Nos, translated they read: 'Darkness is another light / That exposes true beauty'


	13. Chapter 13

_Another new picture: Sebastian, dying on the floor of his throne room in Edom._

_Words again, beneath the picture:_

_“Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib’d / In one self place”_

 

* * *

“What was it like?”   Izzy had come up with her to the training room, after they’d let her out. They were practicing flips and jumps, distracting themselves while they waited for the Clave to finish with Jace.

Clary shrugged. “The usual. A million questions, mostly totally ignoring the main point, lots of going round in circles. Magnus tried to say some sensible things, but no-one really listened to him.”

“Did they . . .?”

“Use the Mortal Sword?   Of course. They still don’t trust me.   Or Jace.”   She spoke with some bitterness.  

She had known what was coming when they reached Idris.   She’d been interrogated by the Clave enough times now that it had almost become routine. The endless questions, circling round and round, usually ignoring what seemed to her to be the main issues, only to home in on some tangential point.   The feel of the Mortal Sword, its hooks in her skin, ripping the truth out of her as if she were unwilling to give it up.

And, of course, the looks of suspicion, the whispers that still said ‘Valentine’s daughter’, no matter how many times she proved her loyalty to them.

She hadn’t told them about the latest drawing. If they had trusted her enough to question her without the Mortal Sword, maybe she would have told them.   As it was, they seemed to view her contact with Sebastian as somehow a reflection on her – and no doubt they were taking the same approach with Jace.

Scrambling lightly up to the high beams, she hurled herself downwards, bouncing off the walls, as if she could shake everything - the Clave, her memories of Sebastian and the faerie country - out of her mind.

“What about you?” She looked at Izzy when she finally landed. “How is it, being here?”

Izzy shrugged.   “You know. Half the time Simon doesn’t quite remember who I am, he hardly has any free time anyway because of the Academy training schedule, and all the other teenagers here are Ascension candidates and think I’m terrifying. Other than that, it’s great.”

Clary sat down cross legged on the training mat, and looked at Izzy.

“Are you going to stay?   Surely you need different training than they’re getting in the Academy?”

“I don’t know.” Izzy sighed, joining her on the mat, leaning back on her hands. “I could go back to New York again with Maryse, but with you two and Alec gone, its pretty grim. Anyway, she’s trying to be nice, sending me here so I can see Simon, and it seems ungrateful to say ‘actually, it kind of sucks’. ”

“What sucks?” Jace came in, and folded himself up next to them.

“Life, the universe . . . everything.”

It was such a Simon reply, Clary thought, sadly. Even in the little time Iz had been with him, she’d picked up some of his ways of speech.

“I could kill it?” Jace flourished a dagger.   “I’m sure that’s part of my job as a brother.”

“It’s not an it, and I’m not sure that’s going to help.” Izzy didn’t smile.

“We could kill him together? You with your whip, and me with a very large sword?”

“Jace, Simon isn’t going to be able to be my boyfriend if he’s dead.“

Jace raised his eyebrows.   “I don’t know, he seemed pretty keen on being your boyfriend when he was dead before.”  

Clary figured it was probably time to change the subject.   “Do you think Maryse would send you back to Britain with us, Iz?   I’m sure the only reason she didn’t send you before was because she thought you’d want to be with Simon.“

Izzy brightened a little. “She might do. I could ask, at least. Do you think they’re going to send you back, though, after what happened?”

“I really don’t know.” Clary looked at Jace.   “What were the Clave like with you?   Did Robert say anything about what was going to happen next?”

“No. He was too busy going on about expecting better of me, that I ought to be more responsible and not rush off without contacting any of the adults from the Institute, that sort of thing.”

“That is _so_ unfair,” Izzy said, hotly. “You rescued Clary, and _she_ found out about Sebastian being still alive – or whatever he is. If you’d come to them, they’d probably still be sitting here now trying to decide what to do.”

“I did point out that as Magnus is three hundred and fifty years old _and_ a member of the Council, I wasn’t quite sure how much of an adult he wanted me to consult.” Jace said.

“What did he say to that?”

“Not much; he couldn’t really, given that Magnus was there representing the warlocks. He kind of mumbled something about Magnus’ irresponsibility. Oh, and that Clary was a bad influence on me.”

“ _Clary_ a bad influence on _you._ ” Izzy was almost speechless.

“Izzy, I think my mom _so_ outdoes Robert in the disapproval stakes, you don’t need to worry” said Clary.

“I’ll have you know, I’m a stalwart member of Shadowhunter society.” Jace spoke mock seriously.

“Yeah, I think that’s mostly my mom’s problem” said Clary.  “That and the fact that until I met you, no-one had ever tried to kill me.   Talking of which, she’s told me that we’re both to come have dinner with her and Luke so that she can have an important discussion with us.   Probably including how I’m never to leave New York again, especially not with you.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I’ve decided to rejoin the Clave. If they’ll have me, of course, but the way things are at the moment, I suspect they’ll take anyone.”

“ _What?_ ”   Clary didn’t know what to say.

Jocelyn shrugged. “There’s a point at which you have to decide which side you’re on. I guess I made that choice the moment I betrayed Valentine, and I’ve been hiding from it ever since.”

“But I thought you wanted nothing to do with them – that’s what you always said.”

“I didn’t.   But look at us – we’re here, in Alicante, you’re an active Shadowhunter, even Luke is on the Council.   I can’t pretend that they’re not part of my life.   I have to deal with the Clave and their politics anyway; I may as well have some part in making decisions.”

Clary’s mind was running through what this would mean.   “But – you’d have to fight?”

Jocelyn’s tone was sarcastic.   “I’m only thirty eight, Clary.   I may be out of practice, but I was a Shadowhunter for the first twenty years of my life.   I’ve spent the last few months getting back in shape, and I’m as fast as I ever was.   I’m happy to train with you, if you’d like.”

Clary thought she heard Jace snicker quietly behind her. Jocelyn’s glare confirmed it.

“I know you two have done a great deal, but you’re still only teenagers.”   Her voice softened. “When it comes down to it, Clary, they’re not sending you children out to the Institutes because they think you’re ready. They’re sending you because there _is_ no-one else.   They’re desperate, and I don’t think I can stand on the sidelines any more.”

 

* * *

 

 Clary sighed, looking down at yet another drawing. As far as she could see, the Council had decided to ignore the fact that Sebastian was – if not alive, as such, definitely back – and homed in on her rescue of Jace via the runed picture.  

They had called her back to the Gard the day after the meeting, sending Jace to Angel Square. Despite her doubts, she’d found that she could reproduce the process; drawing Jace, adding the new rune, and reaching through to him. She’d imagined that would be the end of it; she couldn’t have been more wrong.

She was now on her third day in a meeting room next to the Inquisitor’s office, watched by a small group of Shadowhunters. She had tumbled through her drawings into Jace’s arms so many times now that they’d sent him to wait just outside the Gard, having got bored of waiting for her to walk back from the Square.  

Jace was also bored; very bored. He’d taken to waiting in more improbable positions every time.   After Clary found herself pulled through upside down, caught by Jace who was dangling by his knees from a statue’s outstretched arm, she suggested to Robert, as politely as she could, that they might have seen enough.   Instead, they’d sent him away, and instructed her to start trying to contact other people.

She thought for a little while, then started to draw Izzy, looking characteristically dramatic in spike boots and one of her favourite fitted black mini-dresses, whip coiled round her arm.   Finishing the picture, she inspected it critically; unquestionably Izzy, she thought.   She drew the rune with a flourish, and mentally reached into the image. Nothing.   She tried again, drawing her in training pants & a sweat top, as she’d last seen her that morning. Again, no response.

Next she tried drawing Simon; she figured if she had a connection with anyone beyond Jace, it had to be him. Her picture made her smile, wistfully, it was so absolutely Simon as he was now, looking just a little baffled, as if he were trying to catch a thought before it vanished.   She added the rune; reached into it.   For a moment, she felt as if there were something there, but before she could quite touch him, it vanished.   She tried again, and a third time, finally in frustration drawing Simon as she remembered him in the past, before they’d ever met the Shadowhunters, geeky in glasses and battered slogan t-shirt.   Still, nothing.

Looking at her paper, she wondered who else she could draw. Without much expectation, she sketched out her mother.   Thinking of their conversation, she drew her in gear, weapon in hand.   She added the final rune, reached into it – and felt her mother’s strong hands, grasping her, as she somersaulted through the picture, landing flat on her back with a jolt that knocked her breath out of her.

“ _What_ are you doing, Clary?”   Her mother looked at her – glared at her, in fact - as she got up, and tried to gather her thoughts.   Glancing around, she saw she was in the sitting room of the Lightwood’s Idris house, with Maryse watching, intently.

“Sorry, Mom.” She wasn’t quite sure what she’d done wrong, but very obviously this was a really bad time to have contacted Jocelyn.   “They told me to try and reach people other than Jace. I couldn’t feel anything with Izzy or Simon, so I didn’t think it would work this time either, or I would have warned you.   I’ll go straight back to the Gard.”  

She left, hurriedly, but couldn’t help overhearing a snatch of conversation as she went down the hall; raised voices, and, she thought, Maryse saying “actually follow the Law . . . ”

 

* * *

_Jace, holding her in the back of the antiques shop after the fight in Prague.   Both of them covered in blood, weapons in hand.   Sebastian watching, laughing._

_Another message: “All places shall be hell that are not heaven.”_

/

Laying on the bed in the little attic room in Amatis’ old house, Clary looked at Sebastian’s latest picture.    She remembered the moment, vividly; remembered how for the first time she had understood for herself the thrill that Jace felt when fighting demons, the way her body had sung and the high that had followed.

She _really_ didn’t want to show it to Jace.   She knew how much he still blamed himself for having imagined the horror that was the Infernal Cup while he was bound to Sebastian.  Given the way that the picture brought it back to her, she could just imagine the effect that it would have on him, and the plunge into self-hatred that would inevitably follow.     

Equally, there was no way she could show it to anyone else without telling them things about that time that had remained - thankfully – unknown to anyone but the three of them who had been there.  

After a long time staring at it, she tore the picture from her pad.   She went to throw it in the bin, then paused; she didn’t want Jocelyn or Luke to come across it if they were clearing up.   She thought of burning it, but she had no idea where to find candles or matches in this house, and she couldn’t think of a way to explain why she’d want them.  

In the end, she folded it into the tiniest square she could manage, and tucked it into the bottom of her travel bag, planning to burn it later.


	14. Chapter 14

“Have you got any idea what they’ve decided?” Clary asked, as Jace opened the door to her. She’d received an official message from Maryse this morning, in her capacity as head of the New York Clave, asking her to come straight to the Lightwoods’ house.

“No.” Jace said. “She won’t tell us anything, just says we have to wait to be officially informed.”   He pulled a face. “I’ve been avoiding her as much as possible, to be honest. Every time she sees me she starts talking again about how she’d hoped that we’d manage more than a week out of the country without getting in trouble.”

They went through into the big panelled sitting room, where Robert and Maryse were both waiting, standing slightly stiffly on either side of the carved stone fireplace.    

Maryse stepped forwards. “Clarissa, thank you for coming to us.   Robert and I have been discussing with the Consul what the best thing is to do now, in the light of what has happened.”

Clary found the grandeur of the Inquisitor’s house a little intimidating at the best of times, and felt herself automatically tense. Looking around, she was relieved to see Izzy, and get an encouraging smile and a discreet thumbs up from the window seat where she was sitting.

“So, what are you going to do with us?”   asked Jace.   He was leaning against the doorway, apparently relaxed, though Clary could see the tension in the set of his shoulders.

“We have decided that you two are to go to the London Institute for the moment.   To be blunt, with the way things are right now, we have to consider where there is most need of fighters, as well as your training.” said Maryse.

She shook her head. “It’s not ideal, at all. Normally, we’d plan on sending you somewhere far more different to New York, somewhere you would learn a new language at the least, but we don’t have that luxury right now.  Wales was meant to be a compromise, sending you to an Institute dealing with a thinly populated rural area, but where you could fit in as active Shadowhunters straight away.”

Robert took over the conversation.   “Magnus has convinced us that the faerie population in Wales means that it isn’t a safe place for the two of you.   With Arthur Blackthorn in Los Angeles, and the Branwells rebuilding the Berlin Institute, London is struggling.  I don’t know if you know that Jem Carstairs has agreed to run the Institute for six months until the Branwells return, even though he’s not an active Shadowhunter?   He and Tessa Gray are well able to supervise your training, and you four will be able to provide him with a first line fighting force, calling in backup from elsewhere in the country if it’s needed.”

“So does that mean I’m going too?” Izzy leant forwards, eager.  

Her mother nodded. “If you want to, Isabelle.   I know seventeen is young, but these aren’t normal times, and I think I can rely on Alec to keep an eye on you.  

“What about Sebastian?” asked Jace.   “If we’re going to London, and not back to Wales, are you just going to wait for him to re-appear, or are we actually going to go and look for him _before_ he gathers another army?”

There was a long pause, before Robert spoke. “I think the question that we have to ask is whether we are certain that what Clary saw was, actually, Sebastian.”

Clary looked at him, astonished.   “Of _course_ it was Sebastian,” she said. “Do the Council think that I could get him confused with someone else?”

“Of course not,” answered Maryse, quickly. “It may be that he did survive in some way as a demon, and was summoned by someone from the Fae. But equally, it’s quite possible that the Fae used your memories of him to produce a seeming in your mind once they had you in trance.”

Clary shook her head, disbelieving. “But what about the picture, and the message?”

Robert answered this time.   “We think that it is possible that the Fae manipulated you into drawing it while in trance. It’s drawn in your style, and they would be the most likely to send a message in the Welsh language.”  

He continued, without giving her a chance to respond.   “Regardless of whether some part of Sebastian has survived or not, the Fae are clearly involved, and we aren’t going to leave this attack unanswered. We will be sending a new round of Inspectors to both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, checking for weapons and for any other breach of the treaties, and we will make it clear to all the Fae that any more attacks on either of you will be taken as an act of war.”

“Wonderful,” muttered Jace. “Piss off the Fae even more, and ignore the fact that Sebastian is back until he comes and starts killing us all again.”

“Jace,” said Robert, in a warning tone. “I think both of you need to remember your position. You are very nearly adults, in the final stages of your training, and you need to be seen to be loyal to the Clave and respect the Council’s decisions.”

“Because I’m Valentine’s adopted son, and because Clary’s his daughter?” said Jace, heavily. “Even though Clary was responsible for Valentine _and_ Sebastian’s deaths.”

“Yes, partly because of that,” replied Robert. “And in Clary’s case, not just because she is of Morgenstern blood, but also because she wasn’t brought up a Shadowhunter, and because of Jocelyn’s role in the Circle.”

“When you say ‘her role in the Circle’, do you mean the fact that she worked against it, and organised a fight back against the Uprising?” retorted Clary, hotly.

“I mean, the fact that she was Valentine’s wife, whatever happened later,” said Robert.  

He spoke more gently, now.   “And I know what you are going to say next, Clary, but the Shadowhunters have known Maryse and me for the last seventeen years. They know that we have repented, and they have seen our children grow up. Jocelyn vanished immediately after the Uprising, and they didn’t even know that you existed, that’s all.“

Jace spoke now, slowly. “And they associate Clary appearing in our world with Valentine coming back, and with Sebastian.”

Maryse nodded. “Some do. Not all, by any means. But enough that right now, she needs to be seen to be loyal. As do you, however unfair it is.” 

* * *

_In Prague again; the nightclub, this time. Sitting on the edge of the fountain, just her and Sebastian._

_This time, she knows the words underneath already, remembers him saying them:_

_“You have a dark heart in you, Valentine’s daughter”_

/

Clary looked around, following at the back of the group as they walked through the long corridors of the London Institute. Although she’d been here briefly between waking up from her trance and returning to Cardiff, she hadn’t really taken in her surroundings. It was even more impressive than the Institute in New York, she thought, all wood panelling and brightly glowing tapestries.  

Jem led the way, pausing at the top of the second flight of stairs.   “You know, all of you, that as temporary head of this Institute, I am in charge of maintaining appropriate standards,” he said, seriously.   “I realise that social conventions have changed a little since I was your age, but as you are under eighteen, I am in _loco parentis_ , and must consider the moral situation. _”_   

Clary looked at him more closely at this point, and realised that there was an outrageous look of mischief on his face, as he continued.  “I will, of course, be assigning the girls rooms at one end of the building, and the boys rooms at the other.”

“But . . . “ Jace was, for once, lost for words.   “In Cardiff . . .”

Fortunately, before he recovered, Tessa came to the rescue. “Don’t tease them, Jem.   If I remember, there used to be quite a lot of late night violin playing and kissing that went on, even in the 1870s.”

Relief showed on Jace’s face.   “Violin playing – is this some euphemism I haven’t heard?” he said.

Jem shook his head, laughing.  “Just as it sounds – I used to play the violin, and she _may_ have been known to come and kiss me.   When she wasn’t kissing my _parabatai_ up in the attic, of course.”   He looked fondly at Tessa.

“So does that mean we get a room together?” asked Clary, optimistically.  

“If you’d like,” said Jem. “Or if you’d prefer, we’d thought to give you two connecting rooms on this corridor, so that you’ll each have some space of your own.   And there’s another nice room here,” he said, continuing further along, and opening a door into a large, bright room looking out over Fleet Street, “which we thought you might like, Isabelle.”

“Anyway, we’ll leave you all to unpack and sort yourselves out,” said Tessa.   “We’ve got a big hand-bell down in the kitchen, we’ll ring it when dinner’s ready.”

A familiar face opened the next door along.   “Hiya. How’s things?   They let you out of the Council in the end, then?”

“Gwen?”   said Clary, surprised.

“That’s me.” She grinned.   “I tell you, Tony’s seriously fed up, not only aren’t you two coming back, but the Clave decided that I needed some people my own age to train with and sent me here, so he’s lost me too.”

“Do you mind?” asked Clary, curious.  

“Course not.   London, new people, it’s great, isn’t it.”   She paused a moment “Besides, I kind of fell out with Huw, so it’s good to be away for a while.”

Not sure what to say, Clary made what she hoped was a sympathetic noise.

Gwen shrugged. “He was kissing one of the faeries at that party, and then we had a massive row. I’m not that bothered, to be honest, I was getting bored with him, anyway.”

/

“It’s like the old days, isn’t it,” said Tessa, carrying the big pans across to the table, as Jem rang the bell.   “Apart from having to do the cooking ourselves, of course.”

She looked around, “I still miss them all, though – not just Bridget, either. It brings it back, doesn’t it, being here like this.”

“Do you think we did the right thing, agreeing to take it on?” asked Jem.

“Yes,” she answered, decisively.   “The Blackthorns and Emma are well settled now in Los Angeles, they’ll be fine without us for a few months. And they need us here, I think – the teenagers, I mean, not just the Clave.” She looked at Jem.   “What about you? How are you finding it?”

Jem didn’t answer for a long time, going over, and leaning against the sink. Eventually, he said “He’s very like him, isn’t he.”

Tessa didn’t need to ask who the ‘he’ and ‘him’ were. “Yes,” she said. “Remarkably so, given that he was brought up by Valentine.”

Just as he finished the sentence, Jace and Clary came into the kitchen, followed by Magnus and Alec.   Jace looked at Tessa, and without a word, turned and left the room.

“That was . . . unfortunate timing,” said Magnus. “Were you by any chance remarking on how _very_ similar Jace is to Will at the same age?”

“Yes.” Tessa nodded.

Magnus sighed.   “I’d better go and speak to him. It should be Alec, of course, to give us that real sense of _deja vu_ , but since he has the good fortune not to know the details of your complicated love lives, I suppose it will have to be me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Clary, as Magnus left the room. “It’s just that we’ve pretty much had a week of the Council pointing out how they can’t really trust either of us because _I’m_ Valentine’s daughter, and Jace was brought up by him.”

A few moments later, Jace and Magnus returned.   Jace joined the others, sitting round the big kitchen table. He looked at Alec.   “I can see that I’ve never sympathised with you enough before about this whole immortality thing.   Do they spend _all_ their time reminiscing about things that happened a hundred and forty years ago?”

“Quite a bit,” said Alec, ruefully.

“Look at it this way,” said Magnus.   “At least you’re living with the only two people in Britain who are likely to be nostalgic rather than cross when you’re outrageously rude to them.“


	15. Chapter 15

“So,” said Jem, once they’d all finished eating. “Shall we convene the first meeting of the new generation London Institute?”  

“I guess the first question is, what are the Clave planning to do about Sebastian? And what do they want us to do?” asked Alec.

“Nothing, basically” said Jace, bitterly. “They’re going to send some extra inspectors to the Fae looking for weapons, tell them all they’re bad boys and girls for abducting Clary, and that they’ll get their hands slapped if they do it again.”

“They won’t even admit that he’s definitely back,” said Clary.   “They think that the Fae may have just used my memories to make me think that I saw him.”

“It’s just like Cornelius Fudge in Harry Potter,” said Gwen, a distinct note of excitement in her voice.

“Not quite,” said Magnus. “The Clave will admit that Sebastian _might_ be back. They’re just planning to ignore it, because they don’t know what to do.”

He noticed that Izzy, Alec and Jace were all looking baffled. “Don’t tell me. None of you have read Harry Potter?”

“Have _you_ read Harry Potter?” asked Clary, fascinated.  

“Of course,” answered Magnus. “Hasn’t everyone?”   He looked at Alec. “Well,” he amended. “Everyone who actually lives in the 21st century.”

“The trouble is,” said Clary. “that the Clave might be right. I’ve started even doubting it myself.” She shrugged. “I mean, I stabbed him with Heosphoros, the heavenly fire did its thing, and he looked pretty dead afterwards.”

“Well, all I can say,” said Magnus, pessimistically “is that in my rather long life, I have found that if there is a better option, and a worse option, invariably it’s the worse one that’s true,”

“Mind you,” he continued, “in your case, given that the options seem to be _either_ that the faeries are looking for revenge on you, or alternatively that the faeries _and_ Sebastian are looking for revenge on you, I’m not sure that either scenario is looking particularly good.”

“Thank you for that one, Magnus,” said Jace.   “Does anyone have anything more useful to contribute?”

Izzy had been unusually quiet so far. Clary knew that she had been to visit Simon at the Academy this morning to tell him that she was leaving for London. She didn’t say how the conversation had gone, and Clary didn’t ask.  

She spoke now for the first time since coming down to dinner.     “Wasn’t there something that Lilith said about Sebastian being more powerful than a Greater Demon?   I remember you telling us, when we were in Edom.”

_“The child born with this blood in him will exceed in power the Greater Demons of the abysses between the worlds. He will be more mighty than the Asmodei.”_ quoted Clary.  

“That might just mean that she expected him to finish Valentine’s plan, and rule the world,” said Alec.

“It might, but equally, it might very well mean that when Clary stabbed him, the heavenly fire scattered his demonic part in the Void, rather than killing it outright,” said Magnus, thoughtfully.   “Which would mean that in order to have re-formed, even in such a weak state, someone would have had to have summoned him.”

“Maybe we could summon him ourselves, and ask him?” suggested Jace “Joke,” he said, quickly, looking at Clary’s white face.   “He didn’t happen to mention any names, did he, when you saw him?”

“No,” said Clary, slowly “but I thought of Lilith, and I did ask him how he could re-form so soon, after being killed. He said he had a special connection to me because I’m his sister, which was why he could reach me, but also that the fae had called him.”

“My guess is that it was someone from Cantre’r Gwaelod, or the Hunt,” said Magnus, “Which is odd, as they weren’t involved in the war, and they’ve not really been affected by the peace terms.”   He looked at Jace and Clary.   “Do you remember making any particular enemies amongst them?   You do seem to have a regrettable habit of making enemies.”  

“Strange, given my devastating charm and good manners,” said Jace.   “But not that I know of. I’ve not had anything to do with either of them, beyond meeting Mark when we were going down into Edom.”

Clary shook her head. “Me neither. To be honest, I’d never even heard of Cantre’r Gwaelod until last week.”

Alec’s phone rang, interrupting the long pause that followed Clary’s answer.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be there right away.”   He stood up, “I’m sorry Jem, it’s the pack again, one of them has seen another body over by the river. Carry on without me, Magnus can fill me in when I get back.”

Jace looked at him, automatically putting a hand to his belt, checking for weapons. “Shall I . . .“

“It’s fine.” Alec replied, before he could finish his sentence.

“But don’t you want backup?”

“No, I said, it’s fine.” Alec’s words were uncharacteristically sharp, Clary thought.

Jem sighed as Alec left. “That’s our immediate problem. We’ve been finding dead mundanes most weeks, killed by demons. They’re all people that won’t be missed, homeless, alcoholics a lot of them. Alec’s been trying to find some kind of pattern to the killings. Hopefully with more of you now, we’ll be able to put out some patrols.

* * *

  _In Paris, after she’d fought the Dahak demons. Drinking chocolate with Sebastian, in the café._

No message with the picture this time, but the conversation in the café came back to her, vividly.

“Valentine beat Jace bloody for the first ten years of his life, but Jace still misses him. Grieved for him, though they share no blood at all.”      “You killed our father, and _you don’t care_.”

She pushed the pad under her pillow, hiding it, as Jace came back into the room. He gave her a questioning look, but didn’t ask more.

Jace came and stretched out next to her on the bed.   “I’ve been thinking, about your pictures.”

She froze momentarily, then realised that he couldn’t mean Sebastian’s drawings, wouldn’t have spoken in such a casual way if he’d seen them.

“Do you think you’d be able to contact me without actually coming through the drawing?”

Clary rolled over on her side and looked at him. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to buy you more phone credit?”

“Sure. Remind me what the signal was like in Cantre’r Gwaelod, again.”

“Okay, point taken.” She sighed. “I thought after the Clave was done with me I’d escaped from having to draw a million pictures of you. But I’ll try.”

“I’ll pose nude, if you like,”   Jace offered, optimistically.

“Is that meant to help my concentration?”  

“No, but it might be fun.”   He pulled her towards him, kissed her.  

She started to kiss him back, but then Jace pulled away, putting a hand up to her face.

“You haven’t had any more dreams, have you?” he asked. “About the Hunt, or Sebastian?”

“No” she said, “Not since I woke up in the Spiral Labyrinth. No dreams at all that I remember, in fact.”

“I know there was that one picture, when we got back. But that could have been before you rescued me.   Maybe that was it, if he’s still weak, scattered.   Not for ever, but for now, at least.”

Clary didn’t answer. Instead, she ran her hand up inside his shirt, across the muscles in his back, pulling him against her, kissing him hard.  And as he responded, the pictures slid from her mind, and nothing else mattered but that they were here, together, now.

 

* * *

 “Is it me, or is Alec being weird?” asked Clary.    She was sitting with Izzy and Gwen on an old tree trunk in a small play park, near where the latest body had been found.

“Not you,” answered Izzy. “I don’t know what’s up with him, though.”

Alec had come back the previous night with an address for a homeless mission used by several of the dead Mundanes. They’d agreed to run some patrols around the area, see if they could pick up any traces of demon incursions, while Alec went to the shelter to try and get in and look around.   This time Jace had gone along as backup, but Alec had still been reluctant, and had only agreed to a partner at Jem’s insistence.

The others had trawled round the surrounding streets for most of the morning. After three hours without any trace of demon activity, they’d decided it was time for a break, bought coffee, and taken it to the park to decide their next move.

Gwen nudged her. “Never mind Alec, what do you reckon to that boy on the swing over there?”

Clary thought she’d got used to good looks in her time with the Nephilim, but she had to admit, Gwen had a point. Even though he was sitting, she could see he was tall, with deep coffee coloured skin, and lots of shoulder length curly black hair. When he looked at them, she saw that he also had startlingly blue eyes, noticeable against his brown skin.

That was the point at which she realised that he _was_ looking at them. Not through them, or around them, as he should have done, given their glamours, but straight at them. She was sure, too, she didn’t know how, that he was seeing them as they really were, Marks, gear and weapons.

Izzy had obviously just come to the same conclusion, jumping down from the log, and going across to the boy.   “Are you just going to sit there and stare at us, or are you going to say hello?”

The boy shrugged. “I hadn’t planned on it. Mostly if I see someone . . .” He paused for a moment, “Not obvious? Then they don’t look quite – human.   _And_ they always ignore me.”

“What do we look like to you?” Clary asked, curious.

“Just a bit fuzzy, I guess.   Out of focus, unless I concentrate,” he answered.  

“So have you seen any not-humans round here recently?” asked Izzy.

“Some,” he answered, non-committally.   A phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket, looking at the screen.   “Gotta go.” He stood up, about to leave.

“Look,” said Izzy, putting a hand out to stop him. “We’d really like to know more about who you’ve seen.   Could we come here again and speak to you?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll be out of school about this time tomorrow, you could come then.   But what happens if there are other people around?   I’m going to look a right prat if I’m standing here talking to the empty air”  

 

“Don’t worry” said Izzy, “We’ll look normal, no Glamours necessary. Just be here, okay.”

/

“So he just left? He didn’t ask _anything_ about who you were, or what you were doing, nothing like that. Just left,” asked Alec.

“Yes.   Honestly, he didn’t even seem that interested,” said Izzy.   “Don’t you think?”   She looked at the other two.

“He must be a Downworlder, you just missed it.   Part faerie, maybe?” said Jace.

This time Gwen spoke. “He wasn’t fae.   Believe me, I would know if he was. We spend our whole time dealing with faeries in Cardiff, and you get good at recognising even a bit of fae blood.”  

“It’s too much of a coincidence. All these dead mundanes, links to this area, and then a mystery mundane with the Sight who just happens to turn up when we’re patrolling. He has to be linked to it somehow,” said Alec, shaking his head.   “Didn’t you even think to try and stop him?”

“Yeah, right,” said Izzy. “Jump a mundane, make it obvious what we are, force him to answer questions.   The Council would love that.   I can imagine the interview with the Inquisitor right now.”

Clary shrugged.   “Izzy arranged to meet him again tomorrow. We can try and find out more then.”

“ _If_ he comes back,” said Alec, sceptically.

“I think he will,” said Gwen, definitely. “I’m pretty sure he was pretending not to be interested in us, playing cool.   He’ll be back."

 


	16. Chapter 16

_In the Dark Gard, in Edom. Sitting at Sebastian’s right hand, on the ivory and gold thrones._

/

“Jace?”  

Clary had woken early the next morning, and taken her sketchbook down to the Institute music room. She’d purposefully turned to a blank page, doing her best to ignore the latest picture from Sebastian, and, inspired by the setting, sketched Jace playing the piano.

This time, after adding the final rune, she tried to _think_ into the picture, rather than reaching into it. She was sure she had an answering, rather sleepy, “Clary?” - before tumbling onto the bed, on top of Jace.

“Damn, I thought I had it then,” she said. “Did you hear me thinking at you?”

“Maybe. I was kind of asleep,” Jace answered. “You’re very dressed.”

Clary sighed. “I took your point, last night. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. Whether Sebastian’s back, or if it’s the fae looking for revenge, whatever. Any extra edge we have might be useful.“

She untangled herself from Jace’s arms.   “I’m going back to the music room, to try again.”

“If you must go away, couldn’t you at least go to the kitchen and make coffee?” Jace sounded optimistic.   “You could try sending it to me by picture.”

“Sure, and pour scalding coffee all over you.” She pulled a face.   “I’ll try and think at you when it’s ready.”   

* * *

“Okay, so now I don’t get it” the boy said.   “Why don’t you just dress like this all the time, no need to hide.”

“To be honest, mostly we do.” said Izzy. “It’s just that yesterday we’d been out hunting demons, so we were wearing fighting gear & carrying weapons. It doesn’t tend to go down that well with the mundane police, wandering around dressed in black with nice shiny long knives stuck in your belt.”

“Yeah, well maybe I can see their point.” he answered. “What _are_ you, anyway. I mean, you look human, but I guess you aren’t. I can see you’re still hiding these:” and he pointed at the runes on Izzy’s hand and arm. “I thought they were tattoos, but they’re not, are they?”

“That’s not important,” said Alec, stepping forwards.   “What’s more to the point, is what are _you_ , and how come you can see us.   Gwen here says you aren’t part Faerie, and it seems to me far too much like a coincidence that you’ve turned up here, right now.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”   He sounded genuinely confused, Clary thought, rather than defensive. “I haven’t turned up, I live just round the corner. I come here after school sometimes, if I don’t feel like going straight home.”

“So you don’t know anything about the bodies?”   Jace sounded sceptical.

The boy shrugged. “If you mean the men from the Mission, I’ve heard about them, of course, everyone has.   Some kind of gang trouble, they’re saying. But I’m not part of any gang, I stay well out of all that stuff.”

“No faerie girlfriend? Werewolf in the family? Nothing like that?” asked Gwen, stepping in close.

“Are you taking the piss?” He paused. “You’re not, are you.   What the fuck _are_ you all?   Are you faeries?”

Gwen shook her head. “No, we’re not.   But I think from your descriptions, they’re the not-humans you’ve been seeing around here.”

She looked at the others. “I vote he’s genuine.”

“I’m not convinced,“ said Alec. He turned to the boy again. “You’re expecting us to believe you’ve been seeing the Shadow world all your life, but you’ve just watched, let it go by, and never asked any more questions than that.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know about your world, but in my world, seeing things other people can’t see isn’t the smartest thing to do,” he answered.  

There was more behind it than he was saying, Clary was sure of it, from the pain in his voice. She spoke for the first time, trying to sound friendly and non-threatening, remembering her own confusion when she’d first met the Shadowhunters.   “What’s your name?”

“Tom.”

“I’m Clary.   And this is Gwen, Izzy, Jace and Alec.   Maybe we could all go somewhere quieter, where we can talk properly?”

“I’m not sure I want to go off somewhere quieter. Like, for all I know, you could be the ones that are killing people, you look dangerous enough.”

“I was only suggesting getting a coffee, that’s all” said Clary.   She looked at the others. “There’s that place Jem suggested, it’s not far away.”  

Gwen put her hand on the boy’s arm.   “Maybe you just have to trust us, a little bit.   We could have just ignored you, the way the others do, you know.”  

Her Welsh accent was more obvious now – Clary didn’t know if she was speaking that way on purpose, but the musical lilt carried the undertone of persuasive magic well.  

Tom was clearly weakening, and Gwen pressed her advantage. “We’ll buy the coffee, what have you got to lose?”

/

Gwen had taken charge, chatting to Tom while they walked to the café where they’d bought coffees earlier. It was a Downworld place, tucked in the back of an Army surplus shop, but she’d deftly removed the menu – with it’s vampire and faerie options - from their table, and ordered regular coffees and cakes for them all at the counter.   He’d cheered up noticeably at the sight of the food, Clary thought.

“So why are you interested in me?”   Tom asked, through a mouthful of cake. “Like I said, I’ve been seeing – the Downworld, you called it? – all my life, and no-one’s ever taken any notice of me before.”  

“The thing is,” said Gwen, “there’s something very strange happening round here, and a lot of Mundanes are getting hurt. It’s our job to do something about that, and we need to follow up any leads we can find.”

“A Mundane who isn’t part faerie and who can see the Shadow world is pretty unusual, so that makes you our best lead so far,” added Izzy.

“Look,” said Tom. “I don’t know what you think I’ve done, but whatever it is, I really haven’t.   I’m just a regular kid who goes to school, hangs out, that’s it. So I can see things other people can’t, I know, that makes me a freak, sure. But I don’t do anything about it, I just let them go their way, and I go mine.”

“We really don’t think you’ve done anything,” said Gwen, gently. “But it’d be really helpful to know if you’ve seen anything unusual lately, that’s all.”

“Like Gwen said, a lot of people are getting hurt, and it’s not something the police are going to be able to solve,” added Clary.

Tom shook his head, obviously still uncertain.   “Not really,” he said. “The thing is, I think I probably only see – Downworlders,” and he hesitated before using the word, “if I’m not distracted.   If I’d just been walking past the park, I wouldn’t necessarily have noticed you.”  

He thought for a moment. “I’d say maybe there have been more around lately, but I wouldn’t like to swear to it.”

“Would you be willing to help us a bit?” asked Gwen. “Maybe just take a walk around with a couple of us – me and Clary maybe – and show us where you tend to see Downworlders?”

He shrugged. “I guess. Not this evening, though, I’ve got stuff to do.”

“Tomorrow?” asked Gwen. “It’s Saturday, we could come any time.”

“Maybe. I might be busy,” said Tom.   “Give me your number, and I’ll text you.” 

* * *

As they came back into the Institute, Jem put his head round the office door.  

“Tessa’s upstairs in the training room. Could you lot go up and join her, she wants to discuss your training programmes.   Alec, you’ve got your training sorted, so maybe you could give me a report on what you’ve all found.   Magnus asked me to tell you he’s got a job this afternoon, but he’ll be back later.”

Alec started to go into the office, but Jem shook his head. “I need a tea break. I know London is in a much better state than most of the Institutes that Sebastian attacked, but everything’s still a mess after the evacuation, and I’m sick of looking at paperwork.”

Once they were in the big kitchen, he put the kettle on, and waved a mug questioningly at Alec, who shook his head.

“It’s funny the things I really appreciate, after years with the Brothers,” said Jem.   “Tea breaks are definitely one of them.   And 21st century biscuits,” he added, opening a packet of custard creams.  

“What do Silent Brothers drink?” asked Alec, curiously.

“Water.   And definitely no biscuits,” said Jem.   “It’s a good thing we do so much training,” he added, through his second biscuit. “I’m not sure Tessa would appreciate me getting fat. Might spoil her warlock image, don’t you think.”

“I think perhaps only English Shadowhunters would have tea and biscuits high up their list of things they really missed when they joined the Brotherhood,” said Alec, amused.

“I know, it’s a stereotype, but it’s so true,” said Jem.   “Anyway, you need to give me a report on your patrols, but I’ve been wanting to talk to you, apart from that.”  

He looked at Alec, questioningly. “How are you finding it, having the others here?”

Alec sighed, not knowing what to say.

“It’s a bit different, isn’t it, when you were expecting it to be just you and Magnus?” added Jem.

“It’s not so much that – well it is, a bit, but we’ll get round to finding an apartment soon. It’s just,” and Alec paused.

Jem didn’t say anything, just waited, and eventually Alec went on.

“I’ve always been the follower, you know, even though I’m the oldest. Jace is incredible, and I really don’t mind that, I’ve never had a problem with it. But I was enjoying being on my own here, just for once, being the one that made decisions, and carried them through.”  

He shook his head. “It’s awful, but if I’m being honest, it really doesn’t help that Izzy and Gwen are both better fighters than me, despite being two years younger.”

“You’re pretty good with your bow,” said Jem.

“You know, Jace always used to say, when it was just the three of us.   ‘Izzy should come, she’s the best, apart from me’ and it’s still true. I’ve always been the one who’s good at languages, science, history, that sort of thing. But being good at lessons isn’t really very Nephilim, is it.   And for a while, because I’m older, I’ve been the one who gets to go to Council meetings, that helps. But it’s not going to be for long, they’ll all be eighteen pretty soon.”

They sat quietly for a moment, then Jem spoke again.

“When I lived here before – in the 1870s – this Institute was run by a woman, Charlotte Branwell.   That was unheard of then.   Her husband, well, let’s just say that most Shadowhunters were better at fighting than Henry.   Really, he was a scientist and researcher, which isn’t a very Nephilim thing to do, either. But then he invented the demon sensors you use, and he came up with the theory behind the Portals.   That’s pretty significant, I think.   If you want to look at it that way, just those two things have probably saved more lives between them than any of the Shadowhunters who used to look down on him.”

“Do you think it helped him feel better, though?” asked Alec, rather bitterly.

Jem laughed, “To be honest, Alec, when Henry was caught up in his inventions, we were lucky if he remembered to come to dinner, much less notice what other people thought of him.”  

He continued, more seriously, “You’re a good fighter, I’ve seen you. But like you say, you are also really good at history, languages, far better than the others. The Nephilim need people like you just as much as fighters, otherwise they’d be blundering around in the dark, remember that.”

“I’ll try,” said Alec.

“Have a custard cream,” said Jem, pushing the packet across to him.  

“You know,” he added, thoughtfully. “You might want to consider studying with Tessa and Magnus, learning more about warlock magic. I know Shadowhunters don’t do magic, but there’s a lot of possibilities for Nephilim and warlocks working together. The Portal wouldn’t have worked without the warlock runes that Magnus came up with, but then I don’t think that a warlock would have thought of trying to make it in the first place.”

* * *

_“Jace?”_

_“Clary?”_

_“Where are you?”_

_“In the weapons room.”_

_“I did it!”_

_“I know. It’s a good thing, too, if you’d fallen on me right now, you’d have gotten spiked.”_

Wondering whether she could only send words, or if Jace would be able to see other thoughts, Clary tried something else.

_“Very nice, but I think Izzy and Gwen are wondering why I’m blushing, and I’m not sure I want to explain._


	17. Chapter 17

_Her own head, apparently frozen in a pool of ice.   She doesn’t recognise the quote, either:_

_“Caina: Each holds his face bowed toward the ice, each of them testifies to the cold with his chattering mouth, to his heart's grief with tears that flood forever from his eyes.”_

/

Clary looked up from her sketchbook, where she’d been sketching her mother. She’d tried several more times contacting Jace mentally, and was confident that she wouldn’t fall through her pictures now unless she actually meant to do so.

So far, the only other person she’d managed to reach at all through the drawings was Jocelyn, so she wanted to experiment, and see if she could speak to her, too.     She found the new drawing when she turned back a couple of pages, to check how she’d positioned the runes.   It was the first one she hadn’t recognised, and she wondered if Sebastian was making a point.

“Do you know what Caina is?” Clary asked, trying to sound casual, turning the page quickly back to her own sketch.

“It’s from Dante’s Inferno, part of the ninth circle of Hell,” said Jace.   “The ninth circle is for traitors, and Caina is where he sees those who were traitors to their own family. It’s named for Cain, of course. Why?”

“Oh nothing, I just came across it somewhere, that’s all,” said Clary   “I guess that’s where I’ll end up, then,” she added.

“What?” Jace sounded baffled.

She shrugged, “I stabbed my brother, and more-or-less killed my father.   That probably counts.”

“Valentine had already killed me, he was about to kill you, and when you stabbed Sebastian, we were in Hell ourselves at the time, if you remember.   Are you overcome with remorse all of a sudden?”   He sat back, and looked at her, questioningly. “Because if you are, I think you might be forgetting some of the finer detail of the situations.”  

“It’s still not a great record, killing two out of your three closest relatives, is it,” Clary said.

“If it makes you feel better, you could focus on the fact that Sebastian doesn’t seem to be as dead as he might be,” answered Jace, dryly.   “That and the training programme Tessa just gave you.   If you’re going to get through that lot, and help with the patrols, I don’t think there’s going to be that much time for agonising over your dysfunctional family relationships.”

“I guess.” Clary bent back over her drawing. Suddenly, being able to contact Jocelyn, as well as Jace, felt more urgent.   Sebastian might have planned to separate her from Jace, but he could equally well decide to take revenge on Jocelyn, or indeed to hurt her through her mother.

* * *

Clary still wasn’t sure whether Tom had genuinely been busy, or whether he was just deciding whether to help them, but he’d texted Gwen first thing, arranging to meet them later that afternoon. Alec, Jace and Izzy had decided to try another reconnaissance around the Mission, and they’d agreed to meet up when they’d finished working with Tom.

He seemed much more friendly today, taking them to different places – mostly local parks – where he’d seen glamoured Downworlders in the previous few weeks. From his descriptions, they were obviously faeries. Whether they were London based fae just going about their business as normal, or whether they were linked with the killings, there was no way of knowing, as far as Clary could see.

It was starting to get dark, and she was beginning to wonder quite what Gwen’s plan was, when the Welsh girl stopped, and said,  “Do you want to call Jace, let him know we’re done. We could meet them back at that café.”

Clary got out her phone, but before she had it fully out of her pocket, two boys with black hoodies pulled down over their faces were standing in front of her.   The first reached down for the phone, and she realised he was holding a knife in his other hand.

She reacted instantly, without thinking, bending his wrist so his grip on the knife loosened, taking it with the other hand, and spinning it across the street. Before he could respond, she kicked his legs out from under him, and threw him to the ground.  

She looked round, to see that Gwen had the other boy pinned against a wall. “What . . . the fuck . . . do you think you are doing? _”_    She took his blade from him casually, throwing it away across the street, and continued, in her heaviest Welsh accent, “Would you like to run away now, boys?”

The boy on the ground had already got to his feet and was running; his partner joined him the moment Gwen loosened her grip.

Tom shook his head, looking at Gwen. “That was awesome.   Two of them, both with knives, and you didn’t even blink, either of you.”

Gwen picked up the nearest of the two blades, held it out to him, mock seriously. “That’s not a knife.”   She pulled a long, wicked looking dagger from her boot, and flourished it. “ _This_ is a knife.”   She looked at Tom and Clary, obviously expecting recognition. “Okay, I guess neither of you have seen Crocodile Dundee?” she asked.

Clary shook her head, then realised that she was shaking.    “I could have killed him,” she said, with a shudder.

Gwen put a hand on her, gently.   “But you didn’t.   ‘Intentions don’t matter; actions count’” She said this last in what Clary thought was meant to be an Irish accent. “Nuala always says that.”   She grinned.   “Of course, she usually means it the other way around, it’s all very well to _want_ to kill the demon, but they need to be actually dead or it’s no good.”

Tom looked at Clary, obviously surprised. “I thought what you _did_ was kill people?”

Gwen answered for her, “Not people, _demons_. It’s very different. Usually they don’t even look human.   Hurting a Mundane – a normal person - is one of the worst things we could do.”

“Even if they were trying to mug you?” asked Tom.

Gwen nodded. “Yes, even then. But we didn’t hurt them, so it’s okay.” She bent down and picked up Clary’s phone. “Phone even still works,” she said, looking at it. “Let’s give them a call and go meet the others.”

/

“So did you find anything useful?” asked Izzy.

“Not really, to be honest,” answered Gwen. “Tom – “ and she gestured at him, “was really helpful, and I guess we know that there’s been lots of faeries around here in the last few weeks.   But we don’t know how normal that is.”  

“What about you?” asked Clary.

Alec sighed. “We really need to figure out what is going on at that Mission place.   We went in glamoured up this time and had a bit of a look around, but it was pretty busy, and we didn’t want to risk getting caught by someone with the Sight until we know a bit more.”

“There must be some way to get inside,” said Gwen. “Could we pretend to be homeless?”

“We don’t _look_ very homeless,” said Jace. “Too well fed.”

“Why don’t you just go and volunteer there?” asked Tom.   “They’ve always got signs up asking for people.   Then you’d have a chance to look around and still be legit.”

“Volunteer?”   Alec sounded baffled.

“You could just pretend to be American students wanting to do something to help out. Everyone knows Americans are all really religious, so it’d make perfect sense. You are American, aren’t you? You sound like it, anyway – well, apart from you,” and he indicated Gwen.

“We’re sort of from New York,” agreed Clary. “But not everyone in America is religious,” she added, silently wondering to herself quite what she _was_ , these days.

“Well, _obviously_ I know that,” he replied. “But no-one’s going to be surprised at a couple of American students turning up and offering to help.”

“It’s a good idea,” said Jace, decisively.   He hadn’t joined in the conversation before, drinking his coffee, and fiddling with his weapons. “Not all of us, because we don’t want to be too obvious, and we don’t want them to know who we all are. But like he says, a couple. Maybe Gwen, I reckon she’s good at looking harmless and chatting to people.”

“Thanks,” said Gwen, pulling a face.

“It was meant to be a compliment,” said Jace.

“I’m not American though, I’ll have to be very chapel going Welsh lost and lonely in London,” she added.

“If Gwen’s one, then I should be the other,” said Izzy.   “We look the same age, and we can be students on the same course.”

“I could go in with you and introduce you,” offered Tom, “I go in there sometimes, I know a few of the helpers.”

* * *

_Back in Prague. Clary’s stomach churns as she sees the scene.   Jace, holding what would become the Infernal Cup, about to leave the apartment and give himself up to the Clave. She remembers her own words, calling: ‘Jonathan! Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern!’_

_This time, underneath, a question.   ‘Do the Clave know that you called me? That the war could have ended there?’_

She’d never really admitted to herself the truth of what she’d done, back then. Amatis . . . the Blackthorns . . . all the Shadowhunters who had been turned by the Cup.   If she’d let Jace give himself up, as he’d planned, the Infernal Cup would never have existed, and Sebastian would have died with him.

‘She needs to be seen to be loyal.’   The memory of Robert’s words stabbed at her.   If the Clave knew what she’d done, it wouldn’t just be Valentine’s blood in her they mistrusted. It would be her, and with good reason – because she had chosen Jace above the Nephilim, and above their Angel-given purpose in the world.

_And I would again_ she thought, fiercely.   _Always._


	18. Chapter 18

_‘Do the Clave know that you called me?’_

Clary sat tucked in a corner of the Institute library, looking at Sebastian’s words in growing despair. He was obviously working up to something – and as far as she could see there was nothing at all that she could do to counter him.     She thought of Jace’s need sometimes to go out and fight something – anything – to work off his frustration in the intensity and focus of battle. She understood it now; since she couldn’t figure out how to attack Sebastian, the next best thing would be to attack something else.

She shook herself. She was a Shadowhunter now; killing was her _job_.   If she wanted to go out and pick a fight, there was nothing to stop her.   And it wasn’t, she thought wryly, as if it would be hard to find someone to go with her.   Ten minutes later she was wearing gear and collecting weapons; five minutes after that she found Jace in the music room, bored and only too willing to go hunting.  

/

Jace’s approach was right, Clary thought later that afternoon, as they walked back to the Institute, laughing, both of them high on the adrenaline buzz.   They’d found a report noted in the Institute memo book of possible Elapid demons on a closed up building site, broken in through a padlocked entrance, flushed out the nest.   It might not fix things, but the intensity of the fight, the way they worked as a team now, blocked out her fears for the future and reduced everything to the immediate moment.

Back home, they went up to their room to clean up. As Jace pulled off his t-shirt, she twined her arms around him, sliding her hands up the muscles of his back.  

He raised his eyebrows, questioning, “Don’t you want me to go have a shower?”   She didn’t answer, instead pulling him down into a kiss, losing herself again in the feel and smell of his skin.

* * *

 

“How are things going, Tom? We’ve not seen you in here for a while, is your mother home?”

Tom shrugged. “I’m okay.   Gwen and Izzy here want to help out, if you need people. I met them the other day, they’re students, and they’re wanting to do something useful, I said you might need volunteers.”

A friendly looking young man, casual in jeans and t-shirt, came out from behind a counter where he was stacking a pile of blankets.  

“That’s great, we can always use more helpers,” He smiled, and added, “I don’t know how you’re placed, but I know life can be hard for students. Everyone who volunteers is also very welcome to eat with us, and also to join our Bible study group, if you’d like to.”    

“That’s really kind, we’d love to, if you’d have us,” said Gwen. “London’s very big,” she added, sounding very young.   “It’s hard to get to know people.”

“Come into the kitchen, we’ll get you making sandwiches, and you’ll get to know all of us, for a start,” he said kindly. “I’m Michael, and my co-worker here is Tamsin.”

“You are _such_ a fraud,” whispered Izzy, as he led the three of them through into a back room. “Bible study? _Really_?”

“Just getting in character,” muttered Gwen.

Two hours later, Izzy was both very sick of making sandwiches – ‘just a scraping of marge, each tub has to do three loaves, two slices of cheese or ham’ – and very impressed by Gwen’s acting skills. Without ever apparently asking questions, she’d found out more about the background to the Mission, the number of residents, and the various activies in the building than Izzy would have thought possible.   She’d also signed both of them up for Bible study the following week, and agreed to meet a young theology student some time to go to the cinema.

Izzy decided it was time that she took some action herself.

“Could I use the bathroom?” she asked.

“I’ll show you the way,” offered Tom.  

“Do you really need the Ladies, or are you going to explore?” he asked, once they were well away from the kitchen.

Izzy shrugged. “These corridors are very confusing. I might get lost on the way back to the kitchen.”

“I’d try down there,” and he indicated a corridor leading away from the main dining area. “I know what’s in most of the downstairs, but I’ve never been into that bit of the building.   I’d best go back, they know I wouldn’t get lost.”

Coming out of the bathroom, Izzy headed down the corridor Tom had suggested.   She’d dismissed the idea of using Marks for invisibility, figuring anyone of interest would be able to see through the glamour. Instead, she pulled the sleeves of her hoodie well down over her hands, covering her Marks, including a Soundless rune that she’d applied in the bathroom.

Helpfully, the first few rooms off the corridor had windows set into their doors, showing empty offices.   The next section seemed to be storage, with big cupboards full of cleaning supplies, stacked blankets, and boxes of clothing.

Izzy was beginning to think that there was nothing worth finding, when she came to a locked door blocking the corridor. She hesitated for a moment, then scrawled an Open rune by the lock, and pushed through.  

At first, there didn’t seem to be much difference from the earlier rooms she’d seen; storage cupboards full of clothing and bedding, followed by a small kitchen. The doors to the next rooms had windows again. These looked like dormitories, with rows of beds neatly made. Izzy was beginning to come to the conclusion that there was nothing interesting to be found, when she heard noises coming from a room further along.

Checking her Soundless rune hadn’t faded, and trying to look casual, in case anyone came out into the corridor, she walked past the door, glancing through the window.   One look was enough.   She turned, and desperately trying to maintain her relaxed air, walked back to the door she’d unlocked.

As she closed it behind her, a smartly dressed young woman came out of one of the offices, carrying a file.   She turned, obviously surprised to hear the door click shut.

“What are _you_ doing here?” she asked.

“I’m trying to find the kitchen,” said Izzy, resisting the urge to glance back, and see whether her rune had faded from the door. ‘I just went to the bathroom, but I think I must have turned the wrong way.”

* * *

 

_Mom?_

_Yes, Clary._

This time, Clary had phoned her mother before trying to contact her, in the hope that she wouldn’t interrupt any more awkward conversations.

_So it works with you, too._

_Me and?_

_You and Jace.   Still no-one else.   I don’t know why. Not even Luke, or Simon._  

_How are you, Clary?   Have you heard anything more from Sebastian?   Is London okay?_

_London’s good.   You were right, Tessa is lovely.   And she’s got a whole training plan worked out for each of us._

Clary wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to lie in her thoughts, but it seemed that at the least, she could ignore her mother’s question.

_Luke sends his love. I’m having an . . . interesting . . . time working things out with Maryse. She’s missing her kids, and it makes her even twitchier than normal._

Clary felt a wash of what must be her mother’s emotions, a combination of frustration and amusement.

_I’d best go now, Mom.   It feels a bit weird using this to chat, I think it should really only be for emergencies._

_That’s okay, Clary. I love you._

_I love you too, Mom._

Jace looked at her questioningly.  

“I guess it worked,” he said. “I’m not sure if it’ll catch on as a regular means of communication, though, if it always involves that look of vacant stupor.   It’s not very fetching.”

“I’ll remember that next time you’re trapped in a faerie realm. ‘Shall I rescue Jace? Oh, no, it might mean I have a look of vacant stupor, I think I’ll leave him there.’ ”

“You’d miss me too much.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”   Clary tried to sound withering, but spoiled the effect by curling up on Jace’s lap and kissing him.

“I still can’t figure out why I can only contact you and Mom, though.”

“You love us more than anyone else?” he asked, slightly smugly.

“But why not Luke, or Simon?”

Jace grinned. “Maybe it’s some deep meaningful thing to do with physical connection. You know, you came from your mother’s body, and . . .”

“Yeah, okay, maybe we don’t want to go there,” answered Clary.  

“I _always_ want to go there,” Jace pointed out. “And there’s no point tickling me, even if you’re sitting on me.   My superior fighting skills, plus the fact that I weigh twice what you do, mean that you can only lose, Fray.”

 

* * *

 

“You want to go down that corridor,” said the woman, pointing. “You’ve come into the Admin section here.   I thought that door was locked,” she added, sounding displeased.   “Are you a new volunteer?”

“Yes, I just came with my friend today,”   replied Izzy. “We’ve been making sandwiches.”

“Typical,” said the woman, shaking her head. “I bet they didn’t go through the health and safety training or get you to fill in a disclaimer form, did they.”

“Er, no,” said Izzy, relieved, and a little confused by the turn of the conversation.

“Don’t worry,” said the woman, sounding more friendly. “It’s not your fault, it’s just we’re meant to have procedures in place, to make sure we don’t poison any of the clients, you know.   I’ll speak to Michael, and remind him.”

“Okay,” said Izzy, and headed back towards the kitchen as fast as she could, without actually running.

When she got back, Gwen and Tom were carrying plates of sandwiches and trays of mugs through from the kitchen to a dining area. Izzy picked up a tray, and joined them.

“We need to get out of here and back to the Institute,” she whispered to Gwen, when they were out of the kitchen.

“It’ll look odd if we leave now,” Gwen replied. “We’ve been invited to stay and eat, and the meal’s just about to happen.   What did you find?”

“Not here.   I’ll tell you later.”

* * *

Magnus settled himself at the counter, and ordered an espresso. It was good, being back in London, he thought. He needed to extract Alec from Institute business so that they could go apartment hunting, but with the others here now, that should be easier.   He’d slotted back into the Downworld scene with no friction.   Even though he was being cautious so as not to tread on any toes, there was plenty of work out there, and clients were coming looking for him already.

The bartender pushed his coffee across to him.   He was faerie; tall, human looking other than for a tangle of ivy leaves curling around his forehead in place of hair, and fingernails that might have been bark, rough against his dark hands.

“Magnus Bane?” he asked.

“That’s me,” Magnus replied. “Good coffee,” he added.

“Long time since you’ve been in London.”

Magnus nodded, and the bartender continued,

“I hear your good looking Shadowhunter boyfriend has made a serious enemy.”

Magnus shook his head. “Wrong boy. You’re thinking of Jace Herondale, blond, good looking, lots of enemies. He’s not my boyfriend, far too annoying.”

“That’s not what I heard.   Tall boy, black hair, blue eyes. Goes by the name of Alexander Lightwood.”

Magnus leant forwards. “ _Alec_ has enemies?”

The bartender nodded. “That’s the word on the street.”


	19. Chapter 19

_She knows, instantly, what the picture shows, though she didn’t ever see the scene herself.   A dead woman – with the runes of the Iron Sisters on her face – lying dead in a pool of blood._

_‘Do the Clave know that Jace killed Sister Magdalena, and that his imagination created the Infernal Cup?   Because if not, they will, very soon.’_

Clary looked at the picture, and the message beneath it.   There was no question in her mind; if the Clave knew that she had stopped Jace when he tried to give himself up, they would condemn her for it.   Even so, she would do the same thing again, without a moment’s pause, rather than let Jace walk to his death.

She knew, though, that Jace felt differently.   Being a good Shadowhunter – maybe even the best Shadowhunter – was important to him.   She remembered him saying to her, way back when they’d first met, that Clave and the Covenant were in his blood and in his bones.   Though he didn’t always agree with the Clave, he would care, deeply, if they despised him for what he had done.   And they would, plenty of them, for sure. Despite the fact that he had been under Sebastian’s control, they would judge him and find him wanting.

Clary got out her sketchpad, and started to draw, grimly determined. She’d woken up in the middle of the previous night, realising exactly what it was that she shared with Jace and Jocelyn, and no one else – except Sebastian.  

She slashed the final rune across the picture, and thought into it.

_Clarissa?   Interesting. I didn’t know you could do this, little sister. You’re more talented than I’d expected._

_What do you want from me?_

_You know what I want. Revenge._

_You can have it.   Do what you want to me, but leave Jace out of it._

_Go away from him, then._

_Go away?_

_Exactly.   Leave him, and I won’t tell the Clave about what he did. Stay, and I’ll make sure they know every last detail - about both of you._

Clary’s mind raced.

_I’ll need to find somewhere to go._

_You can have until tomorrow evening. If you’re still with him by then, or if you tell him, or any of the others, why you’ve gone, I’ll tell the Clave._

With that, Sebastian closed his mind to her; she could almost imagine a click, as he pulled away from the connection.

* * *

As soon as they’d eaten, Izzy got up from the table.   “We really have to leave,” she said, “Thank you very much for the food, but we’re going to miss class if we don’t get back soon.”

“Well, thank you very much for your help,” said Michael.   “We’ll see you both at Bible study next week, if not before?”

“We’ll try to come back and help out again before then if we can,” said Gwen.

“Do come in and eat if you need to, Tom,” said Michael, as they left. “Even if your mother’s home, you’re always welcome if you want to get away.”

As they left, Izzy tried to stay casual, fighting the urge to run, to get back to the Institute as fast as possible.  

“So what was it?” Gwen asked, once they were round the corner, out of sight of the hostel.  

Izzy glanced at Tom, wondering if she should wait until they were alone. It wouldn’t mean anything to him, she decided, though he already knew more than he probably should.

“Forsaken. At least a dozen, and that was just one dormitory,” she answered.

Gwen drew in her breath. “So that’s why the Mission.”

Izzy nodded. “A limitless supply of Mundanes who won’t be missed.”

Tom looked questioningly at her. Before she had a chance to say anything, four figures wearing dark hoodies appeared out of an alley, blocking the road in front of them.   For a moment, remembering Clary’s experience, she thought it was more muggers – she even wondered briefly how many muggers there _were_ in south London – until she realised that the figures were glamoured, and that they were facing a group of Forsaken.

“Run away,” hissed Gwen, urgently, to Tom, but even as she spoke, one of the Forsaken darted in and grabbed him, pulling him away from them into the alley.   The others stepped forwards, drawing swords.

Izzy already had her whip uncoiled. She flicked it around the first man’s ankles, jerking him to the ground. Tom pulled away, kicking hard at the fallen figure, and ran back towards the two Shadowhunters, shoving one of the three men with swords hard from behind as he passed him, pushing him off balance into the other two.  

Gwen had pulled the long daggers from her boots.   She shot in as the men stumbled, using the moment before they regained their balance to come in close, stabbing the nearest in the side, and wounding another in his sword arm before darting back.  

Izzy flicked her whip again and again, slashing at the Forsaken across their faces as they tried to move forwards.

“Run!” shouted Gwen, “Now. Before they recover.”

The three of them ran at full speed down the street, away from the Mission. Izzy was relieved to see that Tom was able to keep up with them – she didn’t know how long he’d be able to run, but she hoped they’d be able to get far enough away from the Forsaken before he tired.

He suddenly dodged down a side street. “Down here,” he called, taking them into a pedestrian alley between a block of flats, hopping over a fence, past a row of trash cans, and then back out into another alley..

Gwen looked behind her. “I think we’ve lost them,” she said. “That was quick thinking, shoving them like that. A lot of people would have panicked.”

Tom shrugged. “I’ve had to fight dirty before. What _were_ they? They had the same things on their skin as you, but they didn’t really seem very – intelligent?”

“ _Those_ were Forsaken,” said Izzy, grimly.   “They’re not very intelligent, but they don’t care what happens to them, and if you have an endless supply, they’re hard to deal with. We were lucky, I don’t know who sent them, but usually, there’d be a lot more than four.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” said Gwen.   “Why did they grab Tom? Even if someone saw you snooping, or figured out what we are, it doesn’t make sense that they would go for him.”  

Izzy shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m going to call the Institute, tell them what’s happening, and see what they think we should do.”

She pulled out her phone, and called Jem, explaining as briefly as she could about the Forsaken, and about the attack as they left the Mission.

“He says to bring Tom to the Institute,” she said to Gwen. “Get him somewhere safe, then we can figure out why they tried to grab him.

* * *

Clary packed a bag quickly; Jace was up in the training room, working with Tessa, but she didn’t know how long she had until he finished. She took a small backpack, figuring that it would take the others longer to realise that she’d gone if she left her travel bag, and crammed in a set of gear, and as many warm clothes as would fit.   At least she had a reasonable amount of money; since they were acting as the main Shadowhunters for the London Institute, they’d all been allocated a monthly stipend by the Clave.

She put on her weapons belt, tucking it under her coat, and after a moment’s thought added the sheathed Morgenstern kindjal to the bag, sliding her sketch pad, pencils and two spare steles into the last remaining space.  Then, determined, she swung the bag onto her back, and took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself, in case she saw anyone on the way out.

The corridors were clear, and within moments of leaving their room, she slipped out through the Institute door, into the noise and hurry of Mundane London.   While she packed, she’d tried to remember exactly how the tracking rune had worked when they’d used it in Idris, and had come up with a rough but, she hoped, workable plan to slow down any search.  

Ducking into a side street, and from there into a pedestrian alleyway, she found a quiet doorway. Her glamours meant that she should be invisible to any passers-by, but they wouldn’t help if someone actually walked in to her.   Once she was sure she was safely tucked away, she took out her stele, drew a Portal, and without pausing or looking back, stepped through it. 

* * *

 

“Your Institute is in _Fleet Street_?” said Tom, baffled.   “But how do people not notice it? Even if they can’t see it, surely they notice there’s something missing.”

“Yep”, said Gwen. “We’re almost there, you’ll see in a minute.”

Tom seemed remarkably unshaken by the attack and his attempted kidnap, Izzy thought.    Taking him to the Institute was risky, but Jem was right – if he was just an innocent player in this game, whatever it was, then they had a duty to protect him.   And if he wasn’t – well, Tessa had powers of her own, over and above the Shadowhunters, that was very clear, and she would deal with him and whoever was pulling his strings.

“Here it is.”   Gwen seemed untroubled by any doubts, proudly indicating the Institute door.

“But it’s a church,” said Tom, dubiously.

“Look closely, though,” answered Gwen. “Here,” and she gestured, “we have All-Hallows-the-Less.   And then here,”   and she pointed again, “we have the Institute door.   Just don’t think too hard about how it works, okay,” she added, “and it’ll all be fine.”  

She knocked at the door, with a flourish, “Gwen Freeman, asking entrance in Raziel’s name.”

Izzy looked at her, raising her eyebrows in query.   Gwen winked at her, and Izzy sighed; if Gwen wanted to show off to a pretty Mundane, she supposed it would be unfair to spoil her fun.

The Institute door swung open to Gwen’s command, and she led the way into the huge panelled entranceway.   Izzy followed, watching Tom closely. 

* * *

 

Clary emerged from her Portal in front of the Downworld café they’d visited the other day with Tom. She walked quickly away; it wasn’t the ideal starting point, but it was the only place in London that she was confident she’d be able to picture accurately.

Once she was safely clear of the area, she found a friendly looking Mundane coffee shop and went in.   She had the beginnings of a plan in her mind, but she’d wanted to get out of the Institute as quickly as possible, before her resolve weakened. Buying coffee and a pastry, she sat down and ran through her options.   What she needed right now was a base, somewhere she could stay without the Shadowhunters finding her while she figured out how to fight back against Sebastian.

As soon as he had withdrawn from her mind, she’d started to consider the possibilities, trying to figure out where she could go. At first, she’d thought of the New York pack. Maia would always help her, she knew. But she’d decided it wasn’t realistic to expect them to keep secrets from Luke – and by extension, Jocelyn.   If Jocelyn had still been a free agent, she might have risked it, but now that she was part of the Clave again, she too was bound by the Law, and she didn’t want to force her to choose sides right now.   Besides, Clary thought, she had never really liked Jace, or forgiven him for his part in drawing Clary into the Shadowhunters’ world.

Finishing her coffee, she went over to the counter, and leant against it. “Hey, I wonder if you could help me?” she asked the boy at the coffee machine, casually.

“Sure, if I can,” he answered.   She couldn’t identify his accent; Eastern European, she thought.

“Do you know the cheapest way to get to Wales?”

“Do you want to go anywhere particular? Just being a tourist?”

“I guess.” She shrugged. “I heard from my Mom that some of our ancestors came from Wales – Cardiff? Carmarthen? Something like that. I figured it’d be nice to visit.”

“I’ve never been to Wales myself,” he said. “But mostly, the cheapest way to go places is by bus. If you go to Victoria coach station, you can get pretty much anywhere.”   He smiled. “I’m from Poland, I go back every summer. It only cost me forty pounds last time to get to Gdansk, so Wales should be cheap, I would think.”

Clary smiled back. “You’d think so.”

Half an hour and a short tube ride later, she was in the booking office at Victoria. She nodded to herself with grim satisfaction when she saw the crowds of people and rows of buses; this was exactly what she needed to slow down any search.

 


	20. Chapter 20

Jem had brought them all through into the kitchen, sat Tom down at the table, and was now making cups of tea, asking the occasional question.   Tessa sat at the end of the table, not saying anything as yet, but listening to Gwen’s account of their afternoon.   They made the perfect team, Izzy thought; Jem friendly, unthreatening, so easy to talk to; Tessa waiting in the background until she was needed. If she hadn’t known Magnus so long, she’d have been tempted to think Tessa harmless; as it was, she suspected the warlock was far more dangerous than most Shadowhunters.

Magnus was there now, come in from whatever he was doing, leaning casually against the counter at the other side of the kitchen, listening as Izzy described what she’d seen in the locked corridor.

“I can see why the shelter is perfect for someone trying to create Forsaken,” Jem said, when she’d finished. “The question is, do we go in and put a stop to it straight away, or do we try and find out who it is, and why they’re doing it?”

“Surely we have to stop them?” said Gwen. “I mean, what about if they’re still creating more?”

Tessa sighed. “We should – but if we don’t manage to find out who, and why, it’s most likely that they’ll just go and find another shelter, in another city, and start again.”

“I don’t understand,” said Tom. “What are Forsaken? Are they people?   What’s being done to them?” He shook his head, “Look, I can see you don’t want to tell me stuff, and like I’ve said before, I’ve always gone by ‘you don’t see me, I don’t see you’ but now I’m here, someone just tried to kidnap me because I was with you, and,” he sounded increasingly desperate, “I just want to know what the hell is going on.”

“If it helps, I think I can guess why they tried to take you,” said Magnus.   Everyone turned to look at him. Izzy had almost forgotten he was there; it was unlike Magnus to be quiet for so long.

“They thought you were Alec,”   he continued.   “Tall boy, black hair, blue eyes.   Like Alec.”

“Magnus . . .” said Izzy, “He doesn’t really _look_ like Alec.”

“Alec’s your brother, right,” said Tom to Izzy. “Fierce kind of bloke.   Suspicious.”

“That’s him,” said Gwen.

“White,” said Tom, looking at Magnus. “Which I’m not.”

“Forsaken aren’t subtle,” said Magnus. “Someone will have given them a description: tall boy, black hair, blue eyes, like I said. I just had that description repeated to me by a faerie, by the way, who I rather suspect was hedging his bets in case he ever wanted to be on my good side. Along with the information that Alec has, and I quote, ‘a serious enemy’.”

“ _Alec_ has an enemy?”   said Izzy. “Not Jace? Or Clary?”

“Funnily enough,” said Magnus, with an edge of sarcasm, “that’s exactly the question I asked. Alec does seem to be the only one of you – you two excepted,” he added, looking at Tessa and Jem, “who doesn’t make a habit of pissing people off.   But no, my informant was very clear, though I couldn’t get anything more out of him as to who this enemy was, or what their problem was with Alec.”

“Who’s got a problem with me?” asked Alec, coming into the kitchen with Jace. He stopped, looking at Tom. “Why have you brought _him_ here?”  

“They brought _me_ here,” said Tom, with emphasis, “because someone – _something_ , I don’t even understand what it was - just tried to kidnap me.   Apparently because I look like you, according to Mr Sparkles here.”

“But you don’t . . “ started Alec.

“We’ve been there,” said Izzy. “It was Forsaken, Alec. They’ve been given a description, he obviously fits it.”

“The main question, it seems to me,” said Jem, “is who in the Downworld considers you, Alec, specifically, their enemy.   Because if we know that, we have a place to start.”

“No-one, as far as I know,” said Alec. “I mean, I was in the battle in Idris when Valentine’s forces attacked, but so was everyone else. I was fighting alongside Magnus most of the time.”   He shrugged, “It’s not like I’m the go-to Shadowhunter if you want someone killed, is it,” he said, with some bitterness.  

“Meliorn,” said Izzy, suddenly.     “You shot him, in the Seelie court, in cold blood, when he didn’t even have a weapon drawn.”

“ _Alec_ killed Meliorn?”   asked Magnus.  

Jace nodded. “It’s true.   Executed him, I’d say.   When we found out he was responsible for giving you – and the others, but I don’t think Alec was so bothered about that – to Sebastian.”  

Alec blushed slightly. “He was a traitor. He’d lied to the Clave, and betrayed his position on the Council.”

“ _And_ he’d taken your boyfriend,” added Jace.

“I’m touched,” said Magnus. “Thank you, Alexander.”

“This is all very well, but it doesn’t really help me, does it?” said Tom. “What if they try again? I can’t really go around with a sign on me saying ‘I’m not Alec’, can I.”

“I think for a start, we owe you more of an explanation about our world,” said Jem. He looked round at the others. “The Covenant only says we cannot tell a Mundane about the Shadow world unless it is absolutely necessary and unavoidable,” and he stressed the last words. “I think we’ve got well past that stage here, and as temporary head of this Institute, I’m happy to take responsibility for that decision, and justify it to the Clave if need be.”

Tessa nodded. “Given that he’s been seeing the Downworld all his life – that’s right, isn’t it?” she said to Tom, who nodded “it’s a rather different situation, anyway.”

“Well, if you’ll tell me what the hell you all are, and what’s going on here, that would be a good start,” said Tom.

“Maybe Clary and I would be the best people to explain,” said Tessa.   “Both of us grew up as mundanes, so we’ve got some idea at least of how it feels.”

“What about the Forsaken?” asked Izzy.

“Meliorn seems like our best lead so far,” said Magnus. “The Fair folk may be treacherous, but they have a strange habit of applying double standards when it comes to others.   I’ll dig around a little, see if I can find out anything about his friends and relations.”

“That would be very helpful,” said Tessa.   “You’re more likely than any of us to get useful information, I imagine.”   She stood up, pushing her chair back.   “Izzy, would you go and find Clary, and ask her to join Tom and me in the Library.”

* * *

Sitting on the bus as it swung out of the coach station, Clary relaxed a little. She figured that the tracking rune mostly likely relied on some kind of magical signature from the person being followed.   Hopefully the Portal would interrupt any search, and even if they managed to pick up her trail again the bus route would be tricky for them to follow directly, especially with London traffic.

Her phone rang in her bag.   She let it ring without looking to see who the caller was; it was sooner than she’d expected, but she was bound to be missed at some point.  Once it stopped, she pulled it out, sent a short text, then turned it off.  

**/**

Magnus pulled out his phone.   He looked at it, and raised his eyebrows.   “So why has she sent this to me?” he asked himself, thoughtfully.

**/**

Leaning against the bus window, Clary watched the landscape changing as they drove from England on into Wales. Sketchpad leaning on her knee she drew idly, as she made her plans. Jace, laughing, sword in hand as he demonstrated a tricky feint; Alec standing behind Magnus with his arms around him; Izzy, sitting in Taki’s with Simon, while he was still a vampire.  

She drew Alicante, piles of houses topped by glass demon towers, and then the old Herondale manor house, waiting for Jace and her to grow up and come home to it.   She shivered slightly then, her willpower faltering for a moment.   She was running on adrenaline and pure determination – and the assumption that what Sebastian could see in her mind was limited.  If he could see everything . . .

She pushed the thought away.   She had to believe that wasn’t the case, otherwise she might as well give up now. A new vision came into her mind, and she started to draw, losing herself in the picture.  

She looked at the finished drawing a few minutes later. A landscape, but nowhere she recognised. A rocky peak, bare apart from a single tree – rowan, she thought, looking at the shape, and remembering her classes on protective magics.   And a rune, also not one she recognised, looking in the picture as if it were formed of the rock itself.

* * *

_‘Have to go away. Tell them to trust me and not follow. And tell Jace I love him, always.’_

“He’s taken her again,” said Jace. “Sebastian’s forced her to send it, or the Fae. They sent Forsaken to get Alec, and they’ve taken Clary at the same time.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Magnus.   “If she was being forced to contact someone, surely it would be you they’d think of first. I think that’s why she’s sent this to me.”

“And why would she say ‘trust me’?” asked Izzy.  

“Because Sebastian knows us both, and knows how she thinks,” said Jace, angrily. “I’ve been mentally bound to him, if you remember; he went through my mind like he was tidying his closet.”

“Besides, surely if she had a plan, she’d tell us before she left,” said Alec. He shrugged, “It’s not like she thinks we’ll be able to stop her – Simon tried that when she handed herself over to you and Sebastian, and look how far he got.”

“ _Simon_ couldn’t stop her,” said Magnus. “Jace is not Simon, and he’s not so easy to persuade.”

“Forget it,” said Jace. “He could be doing anything to her, while we’re sitting here looking at a text message that she probably sent at knife point. I’m going to track her - if any of you want to come with me, you can, otherwise I’m going on my own.”

“I’m coming,” said Alec.  

Izzy nodded. “Me too.”

Magnus shrugged. “It’s your choice. I’ll keep digging for anything more on Meliorn.”

“What about your Mundane, Izzy?” asked Jace. “You can’t just abandon him here.”

“Not mine,” Izzy answered. “He’ll be fine with Gwen and Tessa to look after him.   Besides,” and she grinned, “I think Gwen’ll be happy to have him all to herself. She’s already arranged to take him home later.”


	21. Chapter 21

The bar was busier today; mainly faeries, Magnus noted, but a sprinkling of vampires and werewolves.   The same faerie was working the coffee machine, ivy hair pushed back in a rough tangle.   Magnus ordered an espresso, and waited for a quiet moment.

Leaning across the bar, he said, conversationally:   “Someone tried to kidnap Alexander Lightwood yesterday.”

The faerie nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“Would Meliorn’s death be involved, somehow?”

The nod was almost imperceptible this time.

“Can you tell me anything else? I’ll remember the favour,” Magnus asked, quietly.

“Another espresso? No problem,” the faerie said, a little more loudly than necessary, and went across to the machine.   Bringing the coffee across a few moments later, he pushed it across to Magnus, and as he took the money, muttered, very quietly under his breath: “Look for his mother.”

* * *

Clary saw the top of what must be a tipi standing up through the trees, bright white against the grey sky. It had started to rain; a cold, penetrating drizzle. She pulled up the hood of her coat, shifted her bag on her back, and walked a little faster.   She’d found a shop selling cheap army surplus gear in Carmarthen and bought full waterproofs, as well as a sleeping bag and some food. She’d also marked herself before leaving the town; runes for stamina, fortitude, and warmth.   Still, it would be good to be out of the November rain.

She’d asked Gwen about Cwm Ger out of curiosity after she’d got back to Cardiff, wanting to understand more about the boy who’d stayed in Cantre’r Gwaelod in her place.   Gwen’s description had fascinated her; a place where the barriers between Downworld and Mundane thinned, where misfits from both sides of the world could find a home.  

She’d come back to Wales partly in the hope of finding something to lead her to Sebastian, but in any event she needed somewhere – anywhere – to find shelter, and gather her thoughts.   “Anyone can just turn up and stay for a while, no questions asked,” Gwen had said, back when they were in Cardiff. “There’s a big tipi at the entrance to the valley, people just hang out there, share food, help out to keep things running, you know.   They have awesome parties, too,” she added. “Both sides, mundie and downworld.”

Awesome parties weren’t high on Clary’s agenda right now, but a cheap place to stay where no-one would ask questions sounded perfect.  

/

“Hello?”   Clary put her head around the flap of the tipi, cautiously.

“Hi.   Come on in.”

The voice sounded friendly enough, so she pushed back the flap, and went through.   It was dark inside, lit by a few candles dotted around, and the glow of a small fire in the centre.   She could just make out three figures sitting around the fire.

“You just arrived?” one of the figures asked.

“Yes,” Clary answered. “I was hoping to stay for a bit?” She felt awkward; it was one thing for Gwen to say that anyone could just turn up, another to be here, hoping to come and stay with total strangers.

“Sure,” another voice said, cheerfully. “Chuck your boots in the pile by the door, find a corner and dump your stuff. There’s a hot kettle here if you want tea.”

After a moment, her eyes adjusted a little to the dark, and she could see piles of bedding and bags at intervals around the outer circle of the tipi.  

She took her gear boots off a little reluctantly; although the sheathed knives tucked into them were glamoured, she wasn’t sure what would happen if someone actually picked them up.   In the end she pushed them right to the back of the pile, and figured she’d just have to hope for the best.  

 

* * *

Jace leant against the doorway, five minutes walk from the Institute, and swore, fluently and extensively.

“They must have taken her from here,” he said. He was trying his best to stay calm and focused, but visions of Sebastian pinning Clary to the wall in Idris – the look that Sebastian’s eyes had always held when they fell on Clary – kept running through his head.  

“Or she made a Portal herself,” pointed out Izzy. “Useful talent if you want to get away without being followed.”

“I’m going in to the Shelter,” said Jace. “That’s the link, it has to be.”

Alec sighed. “I’ll come in with you if you go,” he said. “But I think we should go back to the Institute first, and see whether Magnus has come up with anything.”

“It’s true,” said Izzy. “Besides, if we go in without a plan, we could just end up scaring off whoever it is, and lose our only lead.”

“We _know_ who it is,” said Jace. “Sebastian.”  

**/**

“I’ve found out more than I ever wanted to know about Meliorn,” said Magnus.   “For a start, his father was human.”

“We knew _that_ ” said Izzy. “That’s how come he could lie to the Council.”

“Would you like to guess where his father came from?” said Magnus.

She shrugged. “No idea. New York?”

“Cantre’r Gwaelod. Before it was drowned.   He was a courtier there. By my reckoning, that means Meliorn must have been at least eight hundred years old.”

Izzy pulled a face. “That’s grim.”

“And you thought that there was a big age gap between Magnus and Alec,” said Jace.  

“Next question,” said Magnus, ignoring Jace. “Where do you think his mother lives?”

“Cantre’r Gwaelod,” said Jace, understanding. “Of course.”

“So, did you get anywhere with your tracking?” asked Magnus, thoughtfully.

* * *

 Clary poked her head out of the tipi flap. The rain had stopped overnight, and the low winter sun was shining through the trees, making the damp surroundings glisten.

She looked up at the sky; it must be mid morning already, she figured.   She’d thought last night that she wouldn’t be able to sleep, had curled up in her sleeping bag intending to plan her next moves, but the runes wearing off had left her bone tired, and she’d fallen asleep watching the fire, and listening to the low buzz of conversation.  

Pulling her boots on, she went outside.   There was a youngish woman, maybe a little older than her, with long black dreadlocks, splitting wood a little way away from the tipi. She’d been sitting in the group by the fire last night, and Clary tried to remember her name.  

The woman looked up, smiled at her and put down her axe.   “How’re you doing? Nice morning.   Claire, is it?”

“Clary.   Are you Aspen?” Clary asked, doubtfully.

“She’s the older woman, grey hair. I’m Jenny. Frankie left this morning, so it’s just the three of us staying in here for the moment.”

“Okay,” said Clary, “Is there something I should do to help?”

Jenny shrugged. “Right now, you could help me bring this wood in, if you want.     Between us we need to fetch up water, keep the fire going, that’s all really.   We’ve been making a meal to share each evening, if you wanted to join in?”

“Sure,” Clary answered.

“You can just put in whatever,” continued Jenny, not really pausing, “Ingredients if you’ve got anything, and there’s a magic hat just inside the door, so if you go down to the shops you can take from that to get stuff to cook.”

_Magic hat?_ thought Clary, a little bewildered. She’d come here looking for a space between mundane and downworld; she hadn’t expected to find it quite so soon.

Her confusion must have been obvious, as Jenny laughed.   “Don’t you have magic hats in the States?” she asked. “It’s just an expression – well, it is a hat, but you put money in if you’ve got any, then people take it out when we need something.   You don’t have to put anything in if you’re skint, it generally works out okay.”

* * *

“The tracking rune works to here,” said Jace, in the alley. “Then she just vanishes.”

Magnus ran his hands over the wall.   Under his touch, the outline of a doorway appeared, ghostly silver against the stone.   Runes burned at either side of the doorway, and he touched them lightly with one finger.  

“I think we can safely say this is Clary’s work. These aren’t warlock runes, and as far as I know, no-one else can make a Portal.”

“So she’s gone of her own accord,” said Izzy.

“Either that, or Sebastian knows that she can make a Portal, and he or the Fae forced her to do it,” said Jace.

“It’s possible,” agreed Magnus, “But unlikely, I think.   The Fae have their own ways of travelling, as do demons, and I doubt they’d want to use a Nephilim portal.” He shook his head. “I’m sure she’s decided for some reason that going off alone is the best thing to do. The question is, _why_.”

“You’d have thought she’d have said _something_ ,” said Izzy. “Or we’d have noticed her behaving differently.”

“I don’t know,” said Jace, slowly. “Yesterday, she turned up in the music room in gear, took me off killing demons.   Not for any reason, just said she was bored. We turned up a nest of Elapid demons, and it was like she was glad to have something to fight.   Then when we got back,” and he paused, “we ended up in bed,”

“No surprise there,” said Izzy, sarcastically.

“I didn’t really think about it, but it was different, as if she was trying to forget something,” said Jace.

“That’s usually _your_ approach to life,” said Alec.

“Exactly,” said Jace.   “It’s what I do when everything’s falling apart, and I can’t cope.”

“You didn’t ask her why?” asked Alex.

“Of course not,” said Izzy. “Sex and violence, Jace’s ideal date. He’s not really going to complain, is he?”

“He must have been getting at her somehow,” said Jace, ignoring Izzy. “I’m going to go through her things. Maybe if I can see what she’s taken, it’ll help us figure out where she’s gone.”

* * *

“You can’t come up.”

Gwen leant casually against the alley wall, and looked at the Mundane boy, eyebrows raised.

Tom shook his head. “I’ll come back to the Institute, like I said. But I need to talk to my mother, and I can’t do that with you hanging around.”

“Can’t you just say I’m a friend from school?   I thought you were going to tell her you’re staying with me, anyway? There are glamours that’ll persuade her it’s all okay, no problem.”

“No glamours.   It’ll just make things worse.”  

She looked closely at him.   “Does she have the Sight too?”

He nodded, without saying anything.

“I can pull down my sleeves, she’s not going to see my Marks.”

He sighed. “It’s more complicated than that, Gwen. She’s . . . fragile, sometimes.   She doesn’t like strangers at the best of times.   If she sees you, and she figures out you’re not – whatever – it’ll get messy.   More messy.”

“So should I wait here for you?” asked Gwen.

“No. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to figure stuff out with her.   It depends how she is.”  

“Look,” he added, after a moment,   “Don’t worry about me. I know I was freaked earlier, but I’ll be fine. I’ll sort things out here, then I’ll come straight back.   If I see anyone dodgy, I’ll run – I reckon I know all the back ways round here better than most, Downworld or not.”

/

Tom watched Gwen heading off, then pushed open the door to the flat. He heard the sound of the television, and went through into the living room.   His mother was sitting on the sofa, looking out of the window, an undrunk cup of coffee on the floor beside her.

“Where’ve you been, Tom?” she asked. “Josh phoned earlier, said he hadn’t seen you for ages.”

Tom shrugged. “I was over at the Mission this morning, got chatting to some of the volunteers.”   He’d thought about it before going in, and decided his best bet was to tell as much of the truth as possible.

She turned to look at him.   “Have you been getting mixed up in things you shouldn’t, Tomos?”

He sighed. He’d had a feeling this wasn’t going to be easy.

 

* * *

_“All places shall be hell that are not heaven.”_

_In the back of the antiques shop after the fight in Prague.   Both of them covered in blood, weapons in hand.   Sebastian watching, laughing._

/

Jace held out the picture that he’d found in the bottom of Clary’s travel bag.

“I know how he’s threatening her,” he said, shortly.

Magnus looked at him, a question in his eyes.

“He’ll have threatened to tell the Clave – things – that happened when we were with him.”

“What sort of _things_?” asked Magnus.

Jace spoke slowly, not looking at them.   “I had a chance to escape, to go to the Clave, and Clary stopped me”

“Why?” asked Izzy.

“Because they would have killed me, of course.   To kill _him_ ,” answered Jace.   He went on, a despairing tone in his voice. “If she’d let me, I’d have killed _myself_ right then.”

“What had you done?” asked Magnus, gently.

“The Infernal Cup,” he answered, shortly. “It was my idea – when I was part of him. And I killed an Iron Sister.”

“But the Clave wouldn’t blame you for things you did when you were possessed,” said Izzy. “Maybe they’d blame Clary for stopping you, but she wouldn’t care – she never cares.”

“Izzy, think about it,” said Jace.   “How would _you_ feel, if it had been Maryse who’d been turned by the Cup – or Alec?   If you knew the idea had come from my head, regardless of how, or why.   Could _you_ forgive me?”

Izzy paused. “No,” she said, quietly.

“Well,” said Magnus, practically. “We’d better make sure that they _don’t_ find out.


	22. Chapter 22

Magnus took the picture out of Jace’s hand.

“Leave this with me,” he said.   “I’ll have a play with it, and see if I can get anything out of it.   I imagine that Sebastian will have told Clary to leave you, otherwise he’d tell the Clave what you’ve just told us.”

“Do you think he still wants her for himself?” asked Alec. “Think about how he was in Edom; it was all about getting Clary to come and rule by his side.”

Jace looked at him, the fear obvious in his eyes. Magnus laid a hand on his arm, surprisingly gentle.

“I don’t think it’s likely,” he said. “It was the human part of him that wanted Clary to love him, and couldn’t forgive Jocelyn for leaving. All of that was burned away by Heosphorus; he’s essentially the same as any other demon, now.”

“So why does he even care about Clary and Jace anymore?” asked Izzy.

“Revenge, pain, suffering – all those emotions that demons feed on,” answered Magnus. “Revenge, in particular, I imagine.   From what he said to Clary in Cantre’r Gwaelod, it seems that what he wants is to separate them; to stop them having what he can’t have himself.”

“And Meliorn’s mother?” asked Alec. “Where does she fit into all this?”

Magnus shrugged, holding up his hands. “Revenge again, obviously. Other than that, I have no more idea than you.”

“She must have summoned Sebastian,” said Jace.   “We should go to Wales – back to Cantre’r Gwaelod – find her, find out how we can get rid of him.”

“But what about the Forsaken, Jace?” asked Izzy. “Maybe she’s right here in London. We could go running off to Wales, and find out that Clary’s still in London, and we’ve abandoned her.”

“Knowing Clary,” said Magnus, “I imagine she’s more than capable of looking after herself. But you’re right, we need to figure out what’s going on here, before we rush off.”

* * *

Tom left the flat, the door closing behind him with a thud.  In the end, he’d just told his mother he was going, would be back in a day or so.   He didn’t like doing it, but they both recognised that there wasn’t much she could do to stop him, these days.

He picked up his bag, and headed towards the river. He figured he’d walk – it wasn’t far, and he could do with some fresh air and exercise to get his head straight.

As he walked past the sweeping entrance to Southwark tube, he noticed the tell tale fuzz of a glamour, off to the side. He carried on walking for a few moments, then crossed the road in the middle of a group of students, and walked back until he was level with the station. Tucking himself unobtrusively – he hoped – behind a pillar, he looked more carefully.

His first impression as he’d passed had been right. The glamour was hiding a group of men milling about, dressed just like the Forsaken who’d attacked them outside the Mission.    He couldn’t see that clearly across the busy road, but he was sure they also had the same swirling black Marks on their hands and faces.   This time, though, there must have been at least fifty in the group, if not more.  

As he watched, the group seemed to coalesce around a leader – not Forsaken, he thought, but not human, either – and started to move.   They were heading the same way he was going; towards the river, and Blackfriars bridge.

He could see the no. 63 bus heading along the road towards him, and almost without thinking he ran for the next stop, dodging across the road, and jumped on. It would get him to the Institute faster than walking, and somehow he couldn’t imagine from Tessa’s description that Forsaken generally carried Oyster cards, or waited for buses.   Besides, presumably even the strongest of glamours wouldn’t hide a full on fight or abduction in a crowded double-decker.  

As soon as the bus was pulling away, leaving the crowd of men safely behind him, he pulled out his phone and called Gwen. Her phone went straight to voicemail, and he swore to himself, silently, remembering her telling him that the thickness of the Institute walls meant that she rarely got signal.   He sent a short text, then moved to the doors, ready to get off as soon as they reached Fleet Street.

/

He found the Institute easily this time, the glamour sliding away without effort. He knocked hard at the door, then again, and again. No-one answered; unsurprising, he realised – there was no knocker, or doorbell, and the chances of being heard through two inches of oak must be tiny.   He tried his phone again; still no answer.

Presumably most visitors to the Institute had some magical way of communicating with the inhabitants. He thought of the door opening for Gwen when she’d brought him here before, tried to remember the words she’d used.   Putting his hands flat against the smooth wood, he spoke, carefully, hoping no-one from the mundane world was watching him.

“Tomos Evans, asking entrance in Raziel’s name.”

The door swung open to his touch, and he walked in.  

A blond figure was coming down the hallway – obviously someone _had_ heard his frantic knocking – but his relief lasted only a moment, as he realised that the figure was drawing a knife.

“I think you have some explaining to do, _Mundane_ ,” said Jace, dangerously.

* * *

After they’d finished taking wood into the tipi, Clary and Jenny had built a small fire in the circle outside. Clary sat on one of the logs that surrounded the fire, sketchbook and pencil in hand. She wanted to figure out what to do next, and drawing gave her an occupation, and made her feel less conspicuous.

After a few minutes, she looked up from her sketch of the valley at Jenny, who was sitting on the other side of the circle, knitting a fuzzy sweater in a rather strange shade of orange.

“I was hoping to explore a bit.   Is it okay to just wander around and meet people?” she asked.   Somehow she needed to work her way into the Downworld part of the valley, hopefully without it being obvious who – or rather what – she was. At least the cold weather gave her a good excuse to be covered up; as well as her hoodie, she had fingerless gloves covering the Marks on her hands, and a scarf wrapped around her neck.

“Yeah, you can just wander around where you like, so long as you stay out of the bits that are obviously people’s gardens,” answered Jenny.   “Some people are chatty, some not so much – they get a lot of visitors, and I guess they get sick of new people after a while.”

She paused for a moment, to knot in a new ball of wool; this time in an alarmingly vivid pink.   “There’s an Ayahuasca ceremony tomorrow night at the farm down across the valley, if you’re interested.”

“Ayahuasca?” asked Clary, curiously. She vaguely remembered hearing the name, but couldn’t think where.

“It’s like these two sacred plants,” said Jenny. “The ceremony’s amazing; there’s a shaman there, he’s from Peru. There’s a ritual, and then you drink the ayahuasca.   It feels really weird, and some people, it makes them throw up, but then it gives you this incredible emotional experience.”

“That sounds pretty . . . intense,” said Clary, not quite sure what to say.

“It’s not just that, though. Afterwards, some people, they see amazing things in parts of the valley, creatures that aren’t human, but not animals either, all sorts of things.   They say if you do the ceremony enough times, you can open up your inner eye, and you see that stuff forever.   I never have, though,” she added, sadly. “I’ve been twice, and it was really deep, but just childhood stuff. Maybe this time, though.   It’s expensive, cos they have to bring the plants in from South America, and I’ve been saving up.”

_Probably not_ , thought Clary. _Not if you haven’t before._ She strongly suspected the drug was just overcoming the Mundane self-censoring process that edited out the Downworld from those with a touch of the Sight.

Aloud, she said, trying to sound casual, “Where in the valley do they see the creatures? Just anywhere?”

“No,” said Jenny, thoughtfully. “Mostly up the top end. Maybe I should try going up there right after. Mind you, it’s a bit wild west up there at the best of times. Aspen swore after she did the ceremony she saw people with flowers instead of hair, green skin. I reckon she just hadn’t come down properly and they were perfectly normal people dressed a bit funny.”

“I’ve not got much money,” said Clary, “So I guess I’ll have to miss out on the creatures for the moment, anyway.”

Maybe, though, just after the ritual would be the time to go looking for Downworlders. At the very least, it would give her an excuse for seeing things that should be glamoured.

* * *

 

Tom looked at Jace. “I just asked – like Gwen did – requesting entry in Raziel’s name.  Is it wrong?   Should she not have let me hear how to ask?”

He hadn’t seen Tessa come down the stairs behind Jace. As always, she was calm, collected.   “No, it isn’t wrong.     But it shouldn’t have worked.   It’s not about the words, it’s about who asks.   The doors should only open to those with Nephilim blood.”

“So it seems,” said Jace, stepping forwards, knife in hand “that there is something _important_ that you’re not telling us.”

“Well,” said Tom, exasperated. “The _first_ thing I’m not telling you, because I haven’t had a chance with all your dramatics, is that there are about fifty Forsaken, led by something that I don’t know what it is, heading this way up the Blackfriars Road. I jumped on the bus so I’d get here quickly to let you know, but I can just go away again, if you’d like?”

“Okay,” said Tessa, taking a breath.   “Let’s just calm down for a moment, both of you.   Come through into the library, Tom, and you can tell us more about what you saw.”

/

Magnus and Alec were already in the library, Alec sitting at the table with what looked like a range of spell books spread out in front of him. Magnus was leaning over him, wearing a startlingly frilly and flowery apron over a more normal – for him - outfit of tight leather pants and stretchy sequinned t-shirt.

“ _What_ are you wearing?” asked Jace, momentarily distracted from Tom by the sight.

“He was trying to explain that magic is like cooking, I _think_ ,” said Alec.

“I hope Izzy never takes it up, then,” said Jace.

“The point I was _trying_ to make, Alexander, said Magnus, “is that you need to think of these as something in the nature of recipes.”

“So he has to wear a frilly apron if he wants to do magic?” asked Gwen, helpfully, having come into the library to see what was going on.

Tom shook his head, bemused. “Did you lot want to know what I saw, or what?”

“Ignore them,” said Tessa. “Can you just describe it all from the beginning, so that we can all hear.”

“You know what,” said Tom, “I don’t think I need to.”   He pointed through the heavy antique panes of glass that made up the library window.   “You can see for yourself. Because they’re right there now, outside.”


	23. Chapter 23

The few minutes after the army of Forsaken appeared at the Institute window were a blur in Jace’s mind. None of them wasted any time in hoping that the wards would protect them; the memories of Sebastian’s previous attacks were only too clear in everyone’s mind.

Jem took charge instantly, sending Magnus to cover the hallway, and Tessa to guard the library window – the only one facing the street - since they could both fight without weapons. The Shadowhunters scrambled to the armoury, Izzy ordered to take Tom upstairs to the training room for safety.

In the moments that it took them to arm themselves and pull on gear jackets, they heard a heavy crash, followed by a series of explosions. Jace, inevitably, was first out of the armoury and into the hallway, where he saw the heavy door laying flat on the floor, evidently blown off of its hinges by the runes scrawled across it.  

Magnus was retreating slowly backwards down the wide hallway, firing blue bolts of magic into the crush of Forsaken pushing their way in through the door. As Jace joined him, seraph blade in either hand, he heard another crash from the library, followed by the clatter of falling glass. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jem, with Gwen close behind, going to reinforce Tessa. Alec positioned himself to the other side of Magnus, bow already drawn, arrows firing into the group of attackers as Izzy ran back down the stairs, Tom presumably safely out of the way.

After that, the battle narrowed down for him to the moment, as it always did, the chaos and shouts reduced to white noise as he focussed on cutting down the enemy, one by one.

As another Forsaken fell to his scissoring blades, he saw through the massed group to the centre, where two tall figures in Faerie armour were evidently directing their forces. He shouted to the others, alerting them; the sheer number of assailants was overpowering, but if they could disable the leaders, the Forsaken should be far easier to manage.

At that moment, he saw a flash of blond hair heading out of the attacking group, into the study. He ducked through the press of bodies, following.   As he went through the doorway, it was as if he had reached the eye of the storm, the pandemonium left behind. All his attention was on the familiar figure, leaning casually against Jem’s desk.  

“Well, fancy seeing you here,” said Sebastian, ironically.

He didn’t move, as Jace lunged forward with his blades, smiling lazily as they passed straight through him.

“Projection,” he added. “I have others to do my fighting for me today.   I notice there’s a shortage of ghosts to help the Institute, this time.   They may have survived once; I’m not sure this time will be so easy.”

“Where’s Clary?” asked Jace, ignoring the speech.

Sebastian shrugged. “Who knows. I was feeling generous, so I told her that so long as you never see each other again, I’d leave you both alone.   Of course,” he added, raising his eyebrows, “you might end up as collateral damage, but at least you’ll die with reputation intact.”

Jace stepped forwards, resisting the urge to try to grab the projection by the throat.

“How did you make her leave?”

“Surely you’ve guessed,” said Sebastian. “The moment I suggested telling the Clave what you got up to when we were together, she did whatever I asked.”

* * *

 

Clary looked around her as she walked up the path into the Cwm.  Jenny had gone off shopping, leaving the tipi empty, and she’d taken the opportunity to Mark herself again with runes for warmth, move her knives to the weapons belt under her clothing, and then take the glamour off of her boots.     She was tempted to poke the fire into life and make more tea, but then she shook herself; sitting here by the tipi wasn’t going to give her any more options for finding Sebastian.

Despite everything, her artist’s eye was drawn to the beauty of the valley, her fingers itching to explore the shapes of the leafless trees and the texture of the landscape on paper.   It wasn’t like any woods she’d ever visited at home; there were huge piles of boulders beneath the trees, covered with moss and ferns, countless small streams splashing clear water over miniature waterfalls.   It was like some Victorian artist’s imagined idea of a fairy grotto, she thought, and then shuddered, remembering the Seelie queen, and her curtain of live butterflies.

She passed various structures – tipis, round wooden huts with grass roofs, a canvas dome - tucked away from the path, some in larger clearings, others right amongst the trees.   She could see smoke curling from chimneys, the occasional person working in a garden or cutting wood.

After about ten minutes walking, the path became steeper, and the ground rockier. The trees were clustered thickly here, and she wondered whether she’d gone past the occupied areas. Remembering Jenny’s comments about the top end of the valley she decided to go on a little further.   A few minutes more walking proved her right. As the path flattened out and the trees became more sparse, she could see lots more evidence of habitation – more wooden huts, tipi poles projecting from the trees, and several smaller paths leading off of the main track.

She paused for a moment, listening intently. She could hear birdsong, a rustling in the undergrowth, but also the faint echo of voices and laughter.   Following the sound, she started down one of the side paths, then paused for a moment, slipping into the trees to mark herself again, this time runes for quietness, acute hearing, and also speed, just in case she ran into any trouble.

Pulling her sleeve back down over the runes, she walked on, this time with no snapping branches or crackling leaves to give away her approach. A couple of moments, and she could see a clearing, with another fire circle set in the centre, much like the one in front of the visitor tipi. She drew back into the trees at the side of the path again, taking a moment to look closely at the scene.

A huge cone shaped building stood behind this fire, set in the trees at the back of the clearing. A conical thatched roof reached almost to the ground, with a semicircular sweep up evidently providing an entry into the structure.

Around a dozen people sat on logs around the fire, chatting and laughing. She waited and watched for a few minutes, listening closely; as far as she could see, the group was all Mundane, and the conversation just general chat about work, firewood, plans for the weekend.   After a moment more, she stepped back onto the path, and went into the clearing, and over to the fire.

A woman waved at her from across the circle, and she recognised Aspen, who was also staying in the visitor tipi. Relieved, she went over and sat down in the space on the log next to her.

“Hi,” Clary said, “I was just having a look around, hoping to meet some people.”

“Sure,” said Aspen. “We’ve been doing some coppicing in the woods up here, we’ve just stopped for a few minutes break. Why don’t you come along and help us.”

“That’d be great,” said Clary, gratefully. She paused a moment, then thought she’d better ask, “What’s coppicing, though?”

Aspen laughed, a little sarcastically. “Where do you come from?”

“New York,” answered Clary, wondering what that had to do with it.

“Not much call for firewood there, I don’t suppose.”

She wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, when a young, earnest looking man broke in on the conversation,

“They don’t coppice much in America, anyway. There’s plenty of forest in New York state, but it’s not managed the same way.”

He turned to Clary. “It’s a British thing, really.   You cut trees, then leave them to regrow from the stumps, and they make lots of thin straight trunks, then you harvest them every so many years.”

At that point, the group started to stand up, obviously ready to go back to work. The man smiled at her. “Come along, and you’ll see. It’s easy enough. Have you used a bowsaw?”

Clary nodded. “A fair bit. My stepfather has a farm in upstate New York, so I’ve helped him cut firewood for his burner.” She looked at Aspen, and smiled, sweetly.   “But I’ve never heard of coppicing before.”  

* * *

Tom stood by the door in the training room, listening to the sounds of battle below.   Izzy had all but bodily dragged him up the stairs, shoving him into the room with a rapid fire: “Stay here – you’ll be fine – we’ll let you know when it’s safe,” and then running off downstairs.

He spent a few minutes looking around the room. Only one door, so if the attackers did reach this part of the Institute, he’d have nowhere to run.   He checked the window, but there was a three storey drop to ground level.

He found shelves at one end of the room, stacked with what must be training weapons; blunted swords, battered looking throwing knives, and heavy wooden staves. After some consideration, he took one of the staves, and tucked a knife in his belt.

Waiting, and hearing the noise coming through the door, he thought about the number of Forsaken he’d seen.   He knew the Shadowhunters were exceptional fighters, but he couldn’t imagine how seven people – including four teenagers – were going to fight off fifty or more attackers.

He hovered by the door a moment longer, then decided that at the least, he should go and look over the stairs, and see what was happening.

Gripping the heavy staff in both hands, he went cautiously down the first set of stairs.   He paused on the landing; the noises he’d been listening to separated out and he could hear periodic explosions, shouts, cries of pain.   He wondered whether to look for another way down from this floor – presumably even Institutes must have fire exits – then decided that he would at least look and see what was happening to the Shadowhunters.

The flight of stairs to the ground floor was wider, and a few steps down brought him in sight of the battle. Alec and Magnus were fighting together in the hallway, surrounded by a crowd of attackers, though there were at least ten - maybe more - laying crumpled around them. Alec, sword raised, blood streaming from a cut on his arm, was driving back any Forsaken who tried to come within striking reach of Magnus.   Flashes of blue light were coming from the warlock’s hands – the source of the explosions, Tom realised. Where they hit, they drew blood, and as he watched, another Forsaken fell, as a final bolt of light hit him square in the face.

From his viewpoint on the stairs, he could see through the wide doorway into the study where he was surprised to see Jace, not fighting, but intent in conversation with an unarmed blond boy.

As he watched, several of the Forsaken broke away from the group in the hallway, into the study. He waited for the blond boy to react; for Jace to realise that there were enemies behind him, but he kept speaking, not turning. The first Forsaken lifted his sword; without thinking, Tom shouted, and threw the knife from his belt, as hard as he could.

/

“Jace! Behind you!”

Jace spun round, suddenly brought back to the reality of battle. A sword was swinging down towards him; but before the attacker could follow through he stumbled as Tom’s thrown knife hit him in the shoulder. Jace used the opportunity to drive one of his own knives under the man’s guard, then stepped back, against the desk.

He was sure afterwards he had heard Sebastian, saying, “Collateral damage,” again, and laughing.  Trying to ignore the voice, he parried another sword thrust, swiftly considering his options. He was surrounded by at least five Forsaken; the desk was behind him, stopping him putting any distance between him and his attackers, and they were pressing in too close to let him get up onto it for height.   He kicked out, hard, as one came in towards him, stabbed at another. As he recovered, he saw a blade coming down, towards his head, tried to step sideways, but was blocked.

/

After he threw the knife, Tom ran down the stairs towards the study.   He wasn’t sure afterwards what had driven him, nor quite what he’d expected to achieve. Bolting across the hallway, hoping to avoid one of Magnus’ flashes of magic, he shouted again,

“Jace – in the study – outnumbered”

Coming into the room, he saw Jace pressed up against the desk, surrounded, trying to dodge a sword cut to the head.   Tom swung the staff, hitting one of the Forsaken hard on the side of the head, and as he did so, he saw Jace fall.   He heard footsteps behind him, and as the group turned towards him, hoped frantically that it was a Shadowhunter, not more assailants.   Then as he tried to swing his staff again, one of the men grabbed his hands, deflected the blow back towards him, and everything went dark.


	24. Chapter 24

Jace opened his eyes slowly, the light redoubling the pain in his head, shooting it down the side of his face.   He tried to lift his arm, but decided after a moment that moving at all was unquestionably a bad idea.  

He was still alive, at least, the pain made that very clear. Opening his eyes further, he could see that he was in the Institute infirmary – so presumably they had won the battle, in the end – unless for some reason Sebastian had decided to take over the building, and hold him hostage.

That thought made him try to move again, and this time he did manage to move his arm, and lift himself up.

“Hey, Magnus! Jace is awake.”

Well, unless Gwen was a deeply undercover double agent, he could assume not.   He lay back down, and shut his eyes again.

“I’d stay still, if I were you. Someone managed to get through your hard head in the end.”

Magnus’ voice.

“Alec’s been decorating you with Iratzes, but you’ve got a nasty concussion, and there must have been demon poison on their swords, from the look of you all.”

Jace opened his eyes again.   Magnus was standing over him, still wearing the frilly apron, now charred and ragged around the edges.   There was strain in his eyes, and for once, it didn’t seem hard to believe that he was several hundred years old.

“You all . . .?” he asked, unable to finish the sentence.   Surely Magnus would have sounded less flippant if anyone – but maybe not, he thought, remembering him in Alicante, Valentine at the gates.

“You came off the worst, for once,“ said Magnus, sounding tired.   “Otherwise, some rather unpleasant cuts, that aren’t responding as fast as they might to the runes. Oh, and Izzy says that her favourite skirt is entirely ruined.”

“Tom?” asked Jace, remembering the boy shouting to him.

“Your may-or-may-not-be-a-mundane is still unconscious, but he’ll live.   No-one could decide whether to risk trying runes on him, so he’s healing slowly.   Frankly,” added Magnus, “I think the Shadowhunters should just invest in some home DNA testing kits.”

* * *

 

“Jenny told me you’d done the Ayahuasca ceremony with her,” said Clary, as she and Aspen stacked the long poles that they’d cut. “And that you saw all sorts of amazing things.”

“Jenny,” said Aspen, with a snort. “She thinks she can just go along, take part in the ceremony, and it’ll all just come to her, like some kind of magic.”

Clary didn’t say anything, waiting for her to continue.  

“She doesn’t understand that there’s more to it than that. You have to prepare yourself, be ready to accept what’s out there, change the way that you think.”

As they finished the pile of wood, Clary leant against it. She looked closely at Aspen, hoping that she’d just look like she was intent on her words. _Faerie blood_ she decided. Just a little bit, visible in the shape of her face, and the look in her eyes. But enough that with her filters lowered, she’d see through some glamours.

She wondered how much faerie blood was needed, to take the path to Cantre’r Gwaelod. If Aspen knew it were there, had it pointed out to her – would she be able to step onto it?   She dismissed the idea almost as soon as it came to her. Apart from violating half the rules of the Covenant, Aspen would probably end up kidnapped or killed by the Fae.  While she might be annoyingly smug, it seemed a rather harsh punishment.

Aspen spoke again,   “If you stay here for a while, get to know people, you’ll start to understand.”

“There’s a party in the Spirit Circle tonight,” said one of the other women who’d been working with them. “If you come up earlier, there’ll be chanting.”

/

Clary sat outside the visitor tipi, drawing.   Jenny had asked her to watch the stew that she’d set cooking over the fire, so she’d brought her sketchbook to see if she could put down on paper some of the landscape around her. She started out drawing a scene from the woodland where she’d walked earlier; tumbles of mossy rock, water flowing over them.   After a few moments she stopped and looked at it in disgust, if the scenery looked like a Victorian fairy grotto, her picture was a cheap children’s book illustration.

She turned the page, and started to draw again. This time the picture came to life in front of her, her pencil moving without conscious effort, outlining, shading. It was the same place that she’d drawn on the bus, she realised, viewed from a slightly different angle. The rocky peak stood out clearly against the sky, a second lower peak to the side. The rock beneath a single rowan tree, the contours forming a rune, one she’d seen before, but couldn’t quite place.

A smell of burning food brought her back to reality. She stood the sketchbook down, and shot over to the fire.   Fortunately, the stew had only just started to catch. She stirred it, scraping it away from the bottom, and used a log to push some of the fire aside.

“Hey, that’s a cool picture,”   Jenny had come out from the tipi while she was sorting out the food, and picked up the sketchbook. “I didn’t know you’d been to Carn Angylion.”

“Where?” asked Clary, tentatively.

“You know, the mountain that you’ve drawn here.”    

“It’s not anywhere I’ve been,” said Clary. “I think I saw it in a book, somewhere.   What did you say it was called?”

“Carn Angylion. It means Angel Mountain in Welsh – well, I think Angel Peak, maybe really, but Angel Mountain sounds more poetic, so everyone calls it that.”

“Is it near here?” asked Clary, curious.

“Not really. It’s right over in the west, on the coast. It’s an amazing place, there’s stone circles, burial chambers, all sorts. Like kind of a sacred spot, you know.”

_Angel Mountain._

“Yes, I think I do,” Clary replied, slowly.

* * *

“I think he’s waking up again,” said Izzy.

Jace hadn’t realised he’d fallen back asleep after his conversation with Magnus. This time when he opened his eyes, he saw Izzy sitting next to his bed, a slightly strange look on her face. He started to put his hand up to his head, but she reached out to stop him.

“You’d better not touch it for the moment,” said Alec.

Jace turned slightly, and saw Alec standing behind Izzy. Like Magnus, Alec looked weary, and much older than usual. He was holding his left arm stiffly – probably broken, partly healed by the Iratzes, but still uncomfortable, thought Jace, having been in the same position more than once himself.

“What happened after they got me?” asked Jace.

Alec shrugged.   “Tessa managed to get one of the fae that was leading them just about when you went down. That distracted them a bit, and we got the other faerie in the end, then it was just a question of finishing them off.”

“Alec killed him,” corrected Izzy. “ _After_ he killed the group of Forsaken that were attacking you.”   She paused for a moment. “What were you _doing_ , Jace? There weren’t that many in there with you, I don’t understand how they managed to get through your guard.”

Jace winced, as pain shot through his face again. “It was Sebastian,” he admitted, reluctantly. “A projection. I was talking to him, and I was distracted.”

Izzy was still looking at him strangely, he realised.

“Why are you looking so worried?” he asked. “It’s not the first time one of us has got a concussion. Unless you think they’re about to attack again really soon?”   The thought made him try to sit up, making his head swirl again.

“It’s not that.” Gwen must be in the next bed, he realised.   “You look a bit of a mess.   Quite a lot of a mess,” she added, bluntly.

* * *

Clary resisted the urge to giggle, as a grey haired woman intoned, solemnly:  

“I call on the great wizard, Merlin.   Help us bring our inner awareness into alignment with your truth, the truth of your Soul and that of your Higher-Consciousness. Help us be willing to step into the light, to believe in the magic within, and to reconnect with your truth“

The woman looked around the circle. “Children of physical matter, do not dwell on that which has yet to manifest into physical form before you. Focus upon the light and seek to be cleansed, healed and transformed into a higher vibration enabling you to move forward away from all that would seek to hold you from your good.“

The ceremony continued for what felt to Clary like hours. Wriggling uncomfortably on her log, she looked around again, wondering if she could leave without being too obvious. She was beginning to think she was wasting her time, and would be better slipping away to investigate the rest of the Cwm.   So far, there were about twenty people in the circle, and as far as she could see none apart from Aspen had any Downworld blood at all.

Just as she had decided that she really had to leave, the chanting reached a new pitch, and then, finally, stopped.  

“It’s finished,” said Aspen.   “What did you think?”

“It was . . .” Clary struggled to find the right words, but Aspen went on, not waiting for her to finish answering.

“You’re so young, and I can feel that you’re not yet fully in tune with the universe.   There’s a muddiness – a lack of clarity – in your aura. You should try meditating, start working to raise your consciousness.”

Clary had a vivid image of Jordan, trying to teach Jace to meditate in Central Park, in an effort to control the heavenly fire. She bit down hard on her lip, as the emotions raised by the memory threatened to overwhelm her.   After a moment, she realised Aspen was looking at her curiously.

“I had a friend who used to meditate a lot,” Clary said. “He’s dead, though,” she added, hoping to end the conversation.

Aspen was unstoppable, it seemed. “You should work with those emotions, explore them. In the modern world, we don’t truly experience death, you know. We shut it away, pretend it doesn’t exist.”

Clary was – almost – tempted to point out that she’d experienced death quite fully enough in the last two years. Fortunately, Aspen was distracted by one of the other women from the ceremony, giving her a chance to escape.

More people were drifting into the clearing now, milling around the fire, ducking in and out of the big thatched building. Clary was standing by the fire, contemplating going into the building to see what was in there, when a slight brown skinned man came to stand beside her.

“You’re a bit overdressed for a party,” he commented.

Turning to look at him properly, she realised he was a faerie. She tensed slightly, and tried to keep her voice casual.

“It’s cold,” she answered, shrugging.

He raised his eyebrows, his smile glittering at her, and suddenly she was grateful for the knives she’d tucked back in her boots, and the instinct that had led her to add the kindjal to her weapons belt.

She realised he’d thrown up a glamour around them, just as he took her left arm, pushing up her sleeve before she had a chance to react, exposing her runes.

“I wouldn’t have expected you to feel cold with these pretty designs on you, Nephilim _,_ ” he said, an edge to his voice.

Clary pulled away, her hands dropping to her belt.

“No need to start pulling out those shiny weapons of yours, girl,” he continued, his voice a little more friendly. “I’ve no desire to break the Accords. I just wondered what you were doing with this lot,” and his hand swept out, indicating the group who’d been chanting.

“How did you know I was Nephilim?” asked Clary, ignoring his question.

“Five foot tall, red haired seventeen year old, suddenly turns up here. We hear the gossip. Besides, you stand like a Shadowhunter.   It’s that air of being about to whip out a sword at a moment’s notice and start cutting people’s heads off.   You Nephilim never know how to relax properly.”

Clary felt obscurely pleased by this comment. It must have shown in her face, since he added, dryly, “That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I’m Emyr,” he added. “Do you want to leave this shower, and come a bit further up? We’re having a proper party up there.”

Aspen was looking at the two of them, hard.   Emyr looked back at her, and waved.

“She can see through glamours a bit, you know,” said Clary.

“Don’t worry about that, no-one ever believes them.   Anyway, I heard her lecturing you earlier, I can’t believe you weren’t itching to tell her that you know more about the Shadow world than _she’s_ ever dreamed of.”

Clary smiled, despite herself. “Only when she told me I needed to explore my emotions, and truly experience death.”

The faerie snorted. “In my experience, Shadowhunters tend to experience death only too readily. Mostly other people’s.   Round this way.”   He led Clary down a back path out of the clearing, following a straggle of other partygoers. Mostly Downworlders, she thought, but a sprinkling of mundanes.

The path led out into another clearing, again centred on a fire circle, with another round wooden hut, this time with a turf roof.

“Just going to find a drink – there’s music inside if you fancy,” he said, leaving her by the fire.

It had started to rain slightly, and the inside of the hut looked inviting, fairy lights sparkling around the entrance. Clary was amused despite herself as she went inside. She may have been 3,000 miles away from home in the woods, but the party looked distinctly like it had been decorated by Magnus in a particularly Victorian mood. There were heavy red velvet drapes, gothic style pointed arches set with stained glass, a couch upholstered in deep crimson leather. The roof must be held up by magic, she decided; it was made up of a spiral of logs, each one resting upon the one next to it, with a circular roof light set in the centre and no obvious support. The polished wood floor echoed the ceiling, the pattern centred on a hexagon of lighter wood, deeply marked with runes.

There were a number of people dancing, and Clary joined them, the heavy beat of the music drawing her in. The other dancers were a mix of Downworld and mundane, Fae and werewolf. None were glamoured, the mundanes evidently well used to their Downworld counterparts.  

It was hot inside, and after a few minutes she pulled off her hoodie and gloves, dropping them at the side of the room.   Dancing, her arms bare, Marks and weapons visible, she thought of the Pandemonium club, and how much she’d changed in the last months. Back then, she’d been in her own city, with Simon, but she’d always felt an outsider, things slipping away from her as she saw them. Here, even though she was in a foreign country, alone, exiled from her family and friends, she felt right, she thought, like she belonged.

She let her mind wander as she danced, losing herself in the music, a haze of sweet smelling smoke twining around the dancefloor. There were paintings on the wall of the hut, set amongst the dark wood and heavy drapes. One of them drew her attention, and looking at it more closely, she recognised the rocky peak she’d drawn earlier, Carn Angylion, Angel Mountain.

As the song finished, she moved to the side of the room, where there was a table of drinks. She found a can of Mundane beer, unopened, figuring it should be safe enough. Emyr was leaning against the other end of the table, and she went over to him.

“You said everyone hears the gossip. What have you heard about us?” she asked, bluntly.

“You need to ask?” he answered. “Seriously – the whole Welsh Downworld knows that Blodeuedd of Cantre’r Gwaelod has a vendetta out against Alexander Lightwood, and that she’s called up that which was Jonathan Morgenstern – the demon that calls itself Sebastian - to help her take revenge.”

“Blodeuedd?” asked Clary.

“You really don’t know?” He sounded surprised. “Meliorn’s mother.”

“So why are you telling me this?” asked Clary, suspiciously. “Don’t faeries stick together?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Not all faeries are equal, surely you’ve realised that by now.   The fancy fae in Cantre’r Gwaelod look down on woodland sprites like us.” He sounded bitter, she thought.

“Scum, lowlife they call us, consorting with mundanes and other downworlders.   But I know the Nephilim. If Blodeuwedd takes her revenge on Alexander Lightwood, the Clave won’t distinguish between types of fae. And _we’ll_ be the easy ones to find.”

“But no-one’s attacked Alec,” said Clary. “Only Jace and me.”

“You’re the price for Sebastian Morgenstern’s help. You two, and the London Institute. But you need to stop Blodeuedd. Think about it.”   With that, the sprite stepped away, into the crowd.

* * *

A/N   For those who are wondering, the Welsh name **Blodeuedd** is pronounced, roughly, blod-eh-yeth (dd makes a ‘th’ sound like in "this)


	25. Chapter 25

“You’re the price for Sebastian Morgenstern’s help. You two, and the London Institute.”

Going outside, Clary tried to clear her head, and decide what to do next.   The sprite’s words echoed in her mind, shaking her abruptly out of the dreamlike state she’d fallen into as she danced.  She’d been so sure that by complying with Sebastian’s demand and going away she was protecting Jace, making sure he and the others would be safe.

But if he wanted the London Institute as well . . .   She remembered all too clearly the attacks on the Institutes. London had been the only city attacked to resist the Endarkened, and Sebastian never took failure well.  

/

_Angel mountain – the single rowan – runes sliding across the rock face_

Clary sat up, fully awake in an instant. She was still dressed; she’d sat curled under her sleeping bag last night, desperately working through the things that she’d learned, and trying to think of what her next move should be. She must have fallen asleep in the end, head on her sketchpad, pencils dropped beside her.

Her dreams had been a kaleidoscope of images; Sebastian in Cantre’r Gwaelod - the rose garden – the London Institute, burning, windows shattered – Jace lying injured, Sebastian laughing behind him.

The dream of the mountain had an entirely different quality, a sense of peace and wellbeing had filled her mind, and she suddenly understood what the runes would do, and how she could use them.

She took her sketchpad, pulled her boots on, and went outside.  She sat down by the fire and drew Jace, her pencil flying across the paper, outlining his face, adding the runes, thinking into the drawing.

_Jace?_

_Clary? What’s going on? Where the hell are you?_

She didn’t pause, the sense of urgency overwhelming her.

_Jace, I’ve got a way of dealing with Sebastian, but we have to do it quickly. I need you to fetch Magnus right now, and get him to make a Portal.   Then bring him with you here_ – and she mentally showed him the rowan tree, the angle of the rocks. _Can you do that? Have you got the place?_

_Yes,_ _but . . ._

_I don’t have time for explanations, just come, as soon as you can. Will you do that?_

_Of course_.

Clary could feel that there was something he wasn’t telling her.   It could wait until they were together, she thought, breaking the connection.

She looked up to see Aspen watching her, curiously. Ignoring the older woman, she went into the tipi, and gathered her things into her rucksack. Pulling out her stele, she went back outside, walking a little way away from the circle, into the trees.   She drew the outline of a door on one of the mossy banks, drew the runes around the edges and brought it flickering into life.

* * *

_Of course . . ._

Of course he would go. He would go to hell itself for her, regardless of injury.  

Jace lay still for a moment after Clary’s voice had gone from his head, gathering his strength, then sat up.  

“Alec? Magnus?” he called.  

Alec appeared by his side almost instantly.

“Clary just contacted me. I need to go to her, now. Can you get Magnus, and ask him if he’ll make a portal to take us there.”  

Alec shook his head. “Forget it. You’re in no state to go anywhere.”

Jace sighed, pointedly. “Look, Alec, I’m _really_ not in the mood for arguing. Either you can go and get Magnus, or I’ll get up and fetch him myself, so not only will I be walking through a Portal, I’ll be wandering round the Institute first.”

/

“How do we know it’s not a trap.”

“We don’t, Alec. But if it _is_ a trap, we still need to go and rescue Clary,” said Izzy, with the air of someone pointing out the obvious.

“Yes, but Jace doesn’t need to come,” answered Alec, stubbornly.

“Unfortunately” said Magnus, already outlining the Portal against the infirmary wall, “he does. Since Jace is the only one who has any idea of where we’re going, and his drawing skills are roughly on a level with an incompetent five year old, even I can’t think of a way to get us there without him.”

“What about the Institute? We can’t leave it unprotected. And there’s the Mundane,” continued Alec.

“I imagine Tessa, Jem and Gwen between them can probably look after things for a few hours, if necessary,” said Izzy.   “Given that between them they’ve got about 400 years of fighting experience.   Gwen – what do you reckon?   Can you manage to look after Tom while we’re away?”

Gwen grinned. “It’d be more interesting if he was awake.   But I’m sure I’ll cope.”

“It is possible that they’re trying to get us away so that they can attack the Institute again,” said Jace, reluctantly.

“Then Tessa will send me a fire message, and we’ll Portal straight back,” said Magnus, adding runes to his outlined doorway. “Are we going, or are you planning to sit around here all morning discussing it?   Because if so, I’m going to go and get a coffee. It’s been a long night.”

* * *

 

It was cold on the mountainside, a biting wind cutting through her clothes and sending her hair flying. As she turned to close the Portal, she saw Aspen coming towards it, a stunned expression on her face. Clary pulled down the magic as fast as possible; the last thing she wanted was the Mundane woman managing to come through with her.  She only hoped that the sprite she’d spoken to last night was right, and that no-one would actually believe Aspen when she told them what she’d seen.

With the Portal safely closed, she looked around her. The single rowan, the twin peaks to the mountain, the massive rock – all were just as she’d seen them in her drawings and in the dream. Looking down from the mountain, she could see the sea stretching out into the distance.   ‘A sacred place,’ Jenny had said, and she could see why it had that reputation.   Despite the wind, and the faint sound of waves crashing against rocks below, there was a sense of quiet, of stillness.

Clary sat down, her back to the rowan tree, thinking through her plan to make sure it was clear in her head before Jace and the others arrived. Sebastian hadn’t contacted her since she left London, but she had no idea how much he knew about what she was doing. Even if he had no direct way of knowing her actions, any of the fae from Cwm Ger could easily have links to Cantre’r Gwaelod.   She needed to act fast, before he discovered that she’d spoken to Jace, and followed through on his threat to contact the Clave.

She pulled out her phone to look at the time, looked at the signal, realised her battery was almost flat. She drew the runes she was planning to use, not because she needed to, really, but to give herself something to do while she waited.   Just as she was about to start drawing Jace to contact him again, she finally saw a silvery shape coming to life a little way out on the hillside; the beginnings of a Portal. Jumping to her feet, she went over to it, standing a little way back as it solidified and opened.

Expecting Jace, she was startled when Izzy came through first, whip uncoiled in her hand.

“Clary,” said Izzy, strain evident in her voice.   “You’re okay? It’s just you?”

“I’m fine,” said Clary, surprised. “Where’s Jace?” but as she spoke, she saw him behind Izzy, supported by Alec, with Magnus following.

“I’m okay,” said Jace, before she had a chance to say anything. He had his face partially turned away from Clary.

“More or less,” he added, Alec lowering him to the ground.

“I assume you have a plan?” said Magnus, neatly zipping the Portal closed behind him as Clary started towards Jace.   “Perhaps you’d like to explain - unless you’ve brought us all here with such urgency to admire the view?”

Clary stopped, took a deep breath, and looked at Jace.

“You know how Jace said we should summon Sebastian? Magnus, could you actually do it?”

“I was _joking_ ,” said Jace.

Magnus raised an eyebrow. “Then you have a little sisterly chat with him, and tell him not to be such a bad boy?”

“Not quite,” said Clary.   “The circle needs to include the rowan tree, and this rock.   Then we use these runes,” and she showed them her sketchbook.

“Valentine’s runes,” said Jace, slowly.

“That he used to bind the angel Ithuriel, and tie his life to the Wayland manor house,” said Clary.   “They trap Sebastian,” and she turned to the drawing that she’d made of the mountain, of the weathered runes worked into the rock.   “He’ll be bound here, _into_ the rock.”

She looked at Magnus, suddenly doubting herself. “It was a dream, from Ithuriel, I’m sure. He showed me this place, Angel Mountain, and the runes that had bound him, marked into the rock.”

Magnus took the drawing from her, looking at it closely. “It could work,” he said. “Angel Mountain, though? _Really_?”

“It’s what it’s called,” said Clary, a little defensively. “They said in Cwm Ger it was known as a sacred place, that on the mountain and round about there’s stone circles, burial chambers, ancient settlements.”

“You’ve been in _Cwm Ger_?” said Alec. “While we were convinced you’d been abducted, Jace was imagining Sebastian doing all sorts of things to you, the Institute was being attacked. . . .”

“Alec,” said Jace, “I don’t think . . .”  

“I didn’t _want_ to go,” said Clary, defensively.

“I vote we try it,” said Izzy, decisive as always. “Clary’s always been right before about what her runes will do. And if it doesn’t work, then we’re no worse off than we were before.”

/

The pentagram formed black lines around the rowan, burned into the short turf with a stick that Magnus broke from the tree. He’d spoken an incantation as he took it, in a language Clary didn’t recognise. He was adding symbols now, within each point of the figure, chanting again.

After a few moments, he stepped back. “Your turn,” he said, passing the rowan stick to Clary.  

As she worked her way around the pentagram, adding the binding runes, Magnus produced candles, sticking them into the turf in a ring a little way back from the figure.   “I’m not sure how well they’ll burn in this wind, but I’ll do what I can,” he added.  

“Striped, rainbow coloured scented candles?” asked Izzy. “Seriously?”

“I summoned, that’s what I got,” answered Magnus. “They must have been the nearest option.”

With a flick of his fingers, all of the candles burst into flame. Despite his comments, they burned steadily, a bright white circle reaching up around the pentagram.

Clary waited a little way back from the circle, stele in hand, watching.   The others stood, one at each cardinal point around the ring of flames. Jace had managed to stand up unaided, shaking off Alec’s helping hand, moving without words to his place with a set look on his face.   He was still turned away from Clary – angry at her for walking out, she imagined – but she tried to put it to the back of her mind, and concentrate on the ceremony.

Magnus started to chant. Latin, though Clary didn’t recognise any of the words from her studies. As the words rolled from him, the flames rose higher, and black smoke started to rise from the pentagram. Suddenly, she heard the name; ‘Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern, _alias_ Sebastian’ and the smoke thickened, rising in heavy waves, and then starting to swirl, finally coalescing into an only too familiar figure.


	26. Chapter 26

“You called?”

Clary wasn’t sure how Sebastian managed to lounge in the centre of a pentagram, but somehow he did.

“Only if you’re not busy – down there in Hell.” Jace could out drawl most people; with Sebastian it was likely to be a close run thing. A side effect of being brought up by Valentine, she supposed.

 _Keep him talking. He needs to not realise what I’m doing._ Clary started to work her way around the outside of the pentagram again, adding the final runes to complete the ritual.

“You all survived, then,” said Sebastian, turning to look around the circle. “I’ll mark Blodeuedd’s report card down as ‘must try harder’.”

“I think what you’re trying to say is ‘I failed’,” said Jace.

“I don’t know. I think _you’ll_ remember that fight for a while. You and everyone who has to look at you,” said Sebastian.

 _Don’t get distracted.   Don’t listen to him._ Clary told herself, her attention irresistably drawn to the conversation. She pulled herself back to the task in hand.

“And my little sister,” he continued.   “I see you broke our agreement. I guess it’s time for me to have a bit of a chat with the Clave.”

“Oh, I’m not sure that will be necessary,” said Magnus, cheerfully. “Or indeed possible.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “Still the Shadowhunters’ pet warlock, then, Magnus?”

“I still prefer Shadowhunters to demons, if that’s what you mean,” said Magnus, unruffled. “Particularly demons with delusions of grandeur.”

“Such as the expectation that I’ll be able to walk comfortably out of this tastefully drawn pentagram?” said Sebastian.   “Like this?”

Just as he started to walk towards the edge of the figure, Clary completed her circle of runes. The candles burnt higher, the flame turning to an irridescent green.

“Stand back,” she shouted, “Now!”

A strong wind blew up, swirling around them, as the flames rose above head height. The sky darkened, light closing in, so that all she could see was the glowing circle, Sebastian visible in profile within it.

She saw him step through the pentagram as though it were no more than lines scratched in the ground, and fear welled up within her. She’d been so absolutely certain this would work – had risked everything on it. The others were drawing weapons, stepping forwards again.

But then Magnus held up his hand. The howl of the wind blew his words away, but she realised that the circle of flames was strengthening, burning yet more brightly.   Then – was it moving inwards?   It was almost imperceptible at first, but after a moment she was certain. Sebastian held up his hands, apparantly trying to push back against the flames, but inexorably herded towards the rowan tree and the rock beneath it. The runes that she’d drawn were glowing white-hot within the green of the fire, she realised now.

After what felt like a lifetime, the dark figure within the circle backed into the rock, stumbling slightly. The wind swirled into a circle, centred on the rock, drawing the flames, runes, and Sebastian down into it like a fiery whirlpool.   Then suddenly there was a blinding flash, burning the image of the binding runes hotly onto her retina, making her blink and turn away.

Then there was quiet. Clary turned back, trying to make her eyes focus. The rock sat there, grey and solid. But now, as she’d seen it in her dream, there were runes etched across its surface.

“Well, that was different,” said Magnus.   “Do you think the locals will appreciate the extra decoration on their geology?”

Clary ignored him, going over to Jace.   He was sitting next to the rock, as if he were unable to stand any more, his sword abandoned on the ground beside him.   As she came up to him, he turned away from her, his head in his hands.

She sunk down beside him, reaching out to touch him.

“Are you angry with me, for going away?” she said, quietly.

“No,” he answered, shaking his head, sounding very tired.

“Then what’s wrong?” she asked.

Jace didn’t say anything, taking his hands away from his face, and turning to look at her.   Part of his right ear was missing, and a thick, puckered scar ran from his eyebrow down across his cheek, pulling his mouth sideways.

“And?” asked Clary.

“It was total incompetence on my part,” said Jace.   “Sebastian sent a projection, and I didn’t notice there were eight Forsaken coming up behind me.   If Alec hadn’t rescued me, I’d be dead.”

Clary shrugged. “We all have our off days.”  

“Actually, I generally don’t,” said Jace, in something approaching his normal tone.

“Look at it this way,“ said Clary. “I’ll be able to send you out to buy mangoes and expect you to get home unmolested.”

“You hope. I’ll just stand in profile.”

“This is all very touching,” said Izzy. “But are we really sure that Sebastian ended up in that rock, and didn’t just vanish back into where-ever he came from, ready to head off and tell all to the Clave?”

Clary reached out and put a hand on the rock. She recoiled when she touched it; a feeling of malevolence and corruption suddenly present in her mind.

“I think he really is,” she said, definitely. “Try touching it.”

From the looks on their faces, the others experienced the same feelings as they laid their hands against the cool stone.

“So what happens if a Mundane comes up here for a picnic, and decides this is a convenient backrest?” wondered Izzy. She pointed down towards the sea, where a small town spread out along the banks of an estuary. “It’s quiet enough up here now, but I bet in summer people climb up here.”

“It’d really ruin their morning,” agreed Jace. “A nice hike in the sunshine, and then they get the full force of Sebastian on a bad day.”

“More to the point,” said Magnus, “we need to make sure that no-one gets interesting ideas about Unbinding him from the stone. I’m reasonably certain that Clary’s runes will stop anyone summoning him from elsewhere, but it’s possible that if they worked on the stone itself, they could undo the ritual.   I can put a glamour on it to keep Mundanes away easily enough, but they’re not likely to be the ones looking.”

“You know your vision, with the rowan tree,” asked Izzy, thoughtfully. “Do you think the stone has to stay here by the tree, now that he’s trapped in it?”

Clary shrugged. “I don’t think so, I think the rowan was just important for the magic.”

“What are you suggesting we do?” asked Jace. “Take it back and keep it as a souvenir in the Institute basement?”

“Not quite,” said Izzy. “Look,” and she pointed higher up the mountain, to the central peak. “There’s piles of boulders just the same up there.   If you could move it up with them, Magnus, with the runes downwards then tip a whole load of others on top of it.   I don’t see how anyone’s going to come across it then.”

/

They stood round the tumble of rocks just below the peak. Somewhere, underneath the small landslide that Magnus had engineered, lay Sebastian. Jace leant heavily on Clary; he’d insisted on climbing up with them, but his head was spinning with the effort.

“What do we do now?”   Izzy voiced the question that Jace suspected they were all thinking. “Is that it?”

“Now,” said Magnus, “we figure out what we do about the vengeful faerie who wants to kill Alec, and probably the rest of us now, too.”

“Blodeuedd,” said Clary. “I meant to mention that bit.   I guess you found out about her too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you go to west Wales, you can find the real Angel Mountain; the single rowan stands as I’ve described, as do the various hut circles, standing stones, and nearby the remarkable Pentre Ifan burial chamber, which dates from the Neolithic period. St Brynach is reputed to have lived on the mountain in communion with the angels (after which he founded a nearby church which has an ancient bleeding yew in its churchyard - legend says it will bleed until a Welshman is king - and two stones marked in Ogham script).


End file.
